SEVERAL JAPANESE COMPANIES will provide Saudi Arabia to develop the country’s desalination market.  Earlier this month, when King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud visited the East Asian island-nation, twenty companies signed 20 memorandums of understanding. The JFE Engineering Corporation will provide the desalination systems, while the materials manufacturer, Toyobo, will develop water treatment membranes.^[1]  Sasakura Engineering as well as several other companies will commercialize the facilities.^[2]

SAUDI ARABIA has pledged to provide technical support in desalination to Sri Lanka.^[3]  Earlier this month, Rauf Hakeem, the Sri Lankan Minister of City Planning and Water Resources, met with his Saudi counterpart, Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Mohsen Al-Fadhli, in Riyadh.  Since then, the Saudi ministry has requested tenders for desalination facilities in Jaffna, located in northern Sri Lanka.  The ministry also plans to build additional plants in arid zones such as Hambantota and Kalpitiya.  A technical team from Saudi’s water ministry is already scheduled to visit the Jubail plant in the near future; and the Saudi Fund for Development is considering the possibility of providing micro-credit for small- and medium-sized enterprises in Sri Lanka.^[4]

RWL WATER is successfully enforcing its strategy to expand into South America’s most lucrative markets.  The company has completed its acquisition of the Brazilian water and wastewater company, Acquavit—now renamed RWL Water Brazil.^[5] The newly refashioned business will work with RWL Water’s companies in Argentina, Italy, Israel, and the U.S., to provide service for its expanding customer base in Brazil.^[6]

SALES AT GRUNDFOS, the Danish pump manufacturer, have depreciated by 0.5 percent to $3.53 billion (USD), and earnings before interest and tax are down to roughly $317.6 million. The company has nevertheless achieved growth in markets across Asia and Europe, including Germany, China, and the UK.^[7]

^{Credit: Desalination.biz}

HYFLUX has sold its 50 percent share in Galaxy NewSpring, to Yunnan Water of Hong Kong.  In 2010, the two companies created the venture—which now boast success with developing, building, and operating wastewater and water reuse plants in northeast China.[8]  Yunnan paid $126.5 million to purchase the Hyflux shares, in accord with the sale and purchase agreement.

^{Quinhuangdoa Port in China’s Heibei Province, where Galaxy NewSpring operates   Credit: Desalination.biz}

IN OTHER BUSINESS NEWS, Voltea’s commercialization of CapDi—its electrodialysis-based desalination technology—is proceeding apace.  Sales in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada have increased by 70 percent in the past 18 months.^[9]  During that same time period, the company has reduced 48 percent of the capital cost of producing a piece of CapDi (capacitative deoionisation) technology. This means that the company’s operating expense is now on par with traditional desalination equipment.^[10]