Field Notes
PAKISTAN: The Korean government may invest $300 million in the development of a drinking water supply pipeline from Tarbela dam to the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi on built-own-operate and transfer (BOOT) basis. The project value is estimated at $800 million.
INDIA: The Ministry of Water Resources signed a €6.6 million contract with DHI to deliver complete decision support systems. The software systems will provide authorities with more efficient tools to manage water resources and contribute to solve climate change and other challenges. The Danish water and environment consultant also is a participant in The Source Partnership, which just released results of a two-year study to identify and minimize sources of environmental hazardous substances in wastewater.
THAILAND: Siemens won a $10 million contract from Advance Agro Ethanol (aAE), a subsidiary of Advance Agro Public Co. Ltd., to provide process, electrical and instrumentation equipment for a new wastewater treatment plant in Tha Toom, Prachinburi Province, Thailand. It will treat up to 6,000 m3/d of wastewater from ethanol production to meet effluent standards and recover biogas as an alternative energy source to save aAE over $5.5 million a year.
JAPAN/CHINA: Japan and China are No. 2 and 4 among leading purchasers in a revised 2009 forecast for crossflow membrane systems in market analysis firm McIlvaine’s “RO/UF/MF World Markets.” Instead of a 9% gain to $9.6 billion, it’s now projecting a 3% gain to $9.1 billion due to the recession and shrinking capital budgets. Some large markets’ gains will offset losses in smaller markets. For instance, expect a sharp drop in the $430 million semiconductor market, but drinking water uses will more than offset that with a $90 million gain — not including desalination which adds another $200 million more. U.S. residential POE markets will slump, but demand in Asia will boost this segment. In other updates, filter cartridges to purify liquids will rise 1% to $13.4 billion in 2009 (down from a 6% gain forecast earlier). And sales of industrial pumps in 2009 will be flat at $32.5 billion with wide fluctuations up and down by market segment and geographical region and only a 2.5% overall gain forecast for 2010.
LAOS: To reduce the distance women must travel for water collection, the Asian Development Bank Board of Directors approved a $23 million grant from its Asian Development Fund for the Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, which will provide piped water and sanitation services for about 137,000 residents in over 120 villages in Laos. Co-financing of US$5.3 million will be provided by Australia with $500,000 from the Gender & Development Cooperation Fund.
INDIA: South Asia’s crucial transboundary river basins that sustain about half of the region’s 1.5 billion people are rapidly depleting due to climate change, overuse and water resources mismanagement, warns a new UN report, “Freshwater Under Threat: South Asia.”
SUEZ units win UF contract in China, unveil Jordan plant
China’s Nantong city, part of the Jiangsu province north of Shanghai, will equip its new 10 000 m3/day drinking water treatment plant with the latest UF technology, ALTEON™, a hydrophilic polysulfone membrane from Degrémont Technologies-Aquasource.
Treating treat settled water from the Yangtze River, it will be completed in partnership with the Wuxi Municipal Design Institute and local manufacturer SPE.
Sister company under SUEZ Environnement, Ondeo Industrial Solutions and France’s Aqua-tools also signed a partnership contract to optimize water treatment installations by using ATP-metry test kits for rapid determination of microbial activity, particularly in cooling tower and cooling water applications.
And Samra Plant Co., owned by SUEZ Environnement, Infilco Degrémont Inc. and The Morganti Group Inc., also inaugurated the As-Samra wastewater treatment plant in Jordan to serve 2.2 million people in the Greater Amman and Zarqa area. Hydraulic turbines installed upstream and downstream, combined with gas turbines powered by digestion biogas, produce 95% of electricity required for treatment. The facility has an average treatment capacity of 267,000 m3/d — with about 100 m3 a year of high quality effluent available for agricultural irrigation and industrial reuse.
Veolia lands series of desalination contracts
Veolia Water, together with AquaNet Sydney Pty Ltd (part of the Jemena Ltd group) signed a €122 million contract with the Sydney Water Corp. last fall for the first private scheme for recycled water to a network of multiple industrial users in Australia.
Among seawater desalination deals won by Veolia companies are:
- Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies will build a seawater desalination plant with two RO units to irrigate an 18-hole golf course in Albany, a luxury Bahamas resort.
- A contract awarded by Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. to supply two MED desalination units with a 3,600 m3/d net capacity for the Al-Khalij power plant in Libya, operated by General Electric Co. of Libya (GECOL).
- Berkefeld, part of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, delivered a 320 m3/h desalination plant and a 3 m3/h drinking and service water treatment plant for a new gas turbine power plant being built in Relizane, a province in northwest Algeria, by Alstom.
- Veolia unit Entropie, in cooperation with the North American Desal Competency Center, won a contract from Minera Y Metalurgica del Boleo to supply a 2,400 m3/d MED seawater desalination plant with four evaporation cells and a thermocompressor for its copper and cobalt mine and mill in Baja California, Mexico.
- Entropie also was awarded a contract by Snamprogetti in Italy for the supply of a 5,400 m3/d MED desalination unit of similar design destined for the Qatar Fertilizer Co.
- Sidem won an EPC contract for 10 MED-TVC desalination units, 28,640 m3/d each, for the Ras Laffan C Independent Water & Power Production project in Qatar. The client is Mitsui Bahrain and the end-user Ras Girtas Power Co. Work includes a potabilisation plant, CO2 plant, seawater supply and reject lines, seawater booster pumping station and other ancillary equipment.
Alfa Laval sells heat exchangers in China, Arabia, USA
Alfa Laval Group, based in Lund, Sweden, won a nearly $6.25 million order for Alfa Laval plate heat exchangers to be used for cooling duties by means of seawater for the fast growing nuclear power industry in China.
In other news, the company also received a nearly $8.7 million order for crude oil treatment at Rabigh gas
turbine power plant in Saudi Arabia (its second order for the plant this year), including separators and plate heat exchangers for cleaning of crude oil and oily water.
And it received a nearly $12 million order for its Packinox plate heat exchangers, which will be used in an IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) power plant in the United States.
Alfa Laval also just acquired HES GmbH Heat Exchanger Systems in Germany, a company focused on spiral heat exchangers mainly to the process industry. It had sales of about €7.9 million in 2008 and some 45 employees, and will be integrated into Tranter.
B&V wins Vietnam, Scottish, U.S. awards
Black & Veatch began work on an agreement with the Vietnam government for consulting services on the Central Region Small & Medium Towns Development Project, which will make key investments in water supply, wastewater, drainage and solid waste infrastructure to benefit 114,000 households in eight towns.
B&V also won a $12 million deal from the Milwaukee, USA, sewerage district to rehabilitate its Inline Storage System Pump Station, which dewaters a 500-million-gallon deep-tunnel storage system that protects Lake Michigan from CSOs.
Scottish Water’s Katrine Water Project near Glasgow, for which B&V served as chief contractor, won the Saltire Society Award for Civil Engineering in 2008. And the 80-mgd Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant in Phoenix, USA, completed a B&V joint venture, earned a 2008 DBIA National Design-Build Award.
