Field Notes
SAUDI ARABIA: Saline Water Conversion Corp. (SWCC) signed multiple 17-month contracts to aid implementation of a privatization and restructuring program announced in early 2008. Several entities were established toward that end such as the Electricity & Combined Production Regulating Authority (ECRA), Water Electricity Co. as the single buyer for water and electricity from investors, leasing land with minimal rates to Independent Water & Power Projects, and adapting the BOO model. Crowning these efforts was a signing for initial project, Shoaibah-3, owned 60% by investors, 32% by the government and 8% by the Saudi Electric Co.
SWEDEN: Sweco was picked to develop a strategy for preventing a water shortage in Mozambique’s capital city, Maputo, for which rapid urbanization is expected to triple clean water demands by 2027. Its task is to assess how much water can be made available by utilizing three nearby rivers as well as possible consequences for other users. The €365,000 assignment on behalf of government agencies in Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa is financed by a Dutch development grant.
IRELAND: Less than two months after introducing its MÓNASHELL odor control treatment solution to the U.S. market, Bord na Móna won contracts to install nearly $2.5-million in odor control treatment solutions in Italy and the UK. With a recent fourth installation in Rome worth $1.5 million, it’s now treating 1 million m3/h of air at four WWTPs there. The UK contract was awarded by British Steel to provide air-cleaning systems for solvent emissions from the company’s painting plants.
OMAN: Pall Corp. supplied a Pall Aria™ membrane filtration unit to Global Engineering Systems that’s now operating at Saud Bahwan Palm Gardens, Sohar, Sultanate of Oman, an exclusive residential project of the Saud Bahwan Group. The unit is downstream of a moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) manufactured by Global Engineering Systems, a licensee of the AnoxKaldnes process.
SPAIN: Dow Water Solutions is investing $15 million to build a Water Technology Development Center at a Dow Chemical facility in Tarragona, Spain. Dow FILMTEC RO membranes will enable 10,000 m3/d of reclaimed wastewater to accommodate needs of the facility and its 20,000 daily visitors. The center is expected to open late in 2009 and employ 25 researchers.
DENMARK: India’s Ministry of Water Resources signed a €6.6 million with DHI to deliver complete decision support systems to provide authorities with more efficient tools to manage water resources. Systems will be used to regulate existing dams and provide data for future planning to help overcome challenges due to climate change.
UK: Bluewater Bio signed its biggest deal to date, with Spanish water company Aqualia Gestión Integral del Agua S.A., to install its HYBACS activated sludge and odourless biological wastewater treatment process at a municipal site in Avila, Spain.
Vacon expands in USA, Europe and South Korea
Vaasa, Finland-based global AC drives manufacturer Vacon Plc. will build a new office and factory in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, USA, by the end of 2009. The foundation stone was laid by Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell on Dec. 5, nearly a year after founding of its U.S. subsidiary Vacon Inc.
The company also strengthened its position in Denmark, Romania and the Ukraine, with a new subsidiary in the first and new offices in the other two. The Danish unit will employ four employees in Sønderborg. The new offices are in Kiev, the capital and largest city in the Ukraine, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania’s third largest city, where industrialization was most rapid in the past two years.
Vacon also extended its supplier agreement with U.S.-based Eaton Corp. on variable speed AC drive technology, a strategic alliance since 1998. Eaton will promote Vacon’s variable frequency drive offering throughout its global organization, including the recently acquired Moeller business.
And it launched a subsidiary Jan. 1 in Seoul, South Korea, to serve East Asia.
SUEZ water projects span Iraq, France, Germany and China
SUEZ Environnement subsidiary Degrémont signed a €150 million contract financed by the Baghdad Water Authority for design, procurement and training in construction of a 910,000-m3/day potable water treatment plant in Al Rusafa-Baghdad. With assistance of teams of engineers from Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, the plant will provide drinking water to over four million people without access to it until now.
In other news, SUEZ unit Lyonnaise des Eaux and SI-ABC also signed a 20-year, €220 million concession contract to build and operate the “carbon neutral” Aquaviva WWTP in Cannes. Sister units Degrémont and GTM will share in construction work. SUEZ subsidiary Eurawasser Aufbereitungs- und Entsorgungs GmbH won a tender for two German management contracts to manage water and wastewater services for the Rheingau area, southwest of Frankfurt am Main.
SUEZ also signed two deals with Chongqing Water Group: for a drinking water project in the Yuelai area of Chongqing and an industrial water and wastewater project in the Changshou Chemical Industry Park. This includes construction and management of a €150-million, 600,000-m3/day drinking water plant to serve 1.2 million people.
Veolia Water busy with ventures in Peru, Ireland, Dubai and France
Partnered with Cosapi S.A. Ingenieria y Construccion, N.A. Water Systems, a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies company, broke ground on a $25 million project to design and build a water treatment plant to treat high density sludge from acid mine drainage at the Minera Chinalco Peru S.A. Kingsmill Tunnel Water Treatment Plant site east of Lima near the border of Junin Province. Veolia Water also won two design-build-operate contracts for major WWTPs in Mullingar and Castlebar in Ireland. The contracts form part of wider plans for sustainable development of both towns, and are worth a cumulative turnover of around €74 million for Veolia Water over 22 years.
In Dubai, Veolia subsidiary Moalajah implemented Oracle® Utilities Customer Care and Billing to help it meet customer needs in Ajman, one of the fastest growing states in the UAE and whose wastewater collection and treatment systems the Veolia unit operates. The customer and billing system also was deployed recently in Dubai by Palm Utilities.
In France, meanwhile, the Water Research Center operated by Veolia Environnement, and partners developed a “Zero Nuisance Piggeries” (ZNP) prototype, which improves pig slurry treatment by saving water via reuse of treated water. It was successfully tested on a pig house experimental station site in Guernévez, France.
Siemens Water buys sole rights to ITT’s Portacel product line
Siemens Water Technologies won the exclusive license for global manufacture and supply of ITT Corp.’s Portacel product line, including OEM, service and replacement parts which ITT will no longer manufacture and sell. The agreement involves monitoring and dosing equipment for potable water disinfection, in particular vacuum dosing of gaseous and liquid chlorine. With the license, Siemens also gains a significant installed base of equipment in about 20 countries.
In other news
- Siemens established its mobile water treatment solutions in the Mid-East with its first installation outside North America, supplying a 50-m3/hr system to Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia in June to treat groundwater for use as drinking water.
- The company also reached an exclusive distributor agreement with ACE Korea, of Busan, Korea, to promote its ELODE (electro-osmosis dehydrator) dewatering technology in North America and China.
- It will provide the Czajka WWTP in Warsaw, Poland, with visualization, control and monitoring systems, as well as electrical installations as part of the largest WWTP upgrade and expansion project in Poland — valued at €24 million.
- And Siemens strengthened its lab and industrial water business with the takeover of Hamburg, Germany-based SG Wasseraufbereitung und Regenerierstation GmbH (SG Water).
