Israel Desalination Engineering (IDE) Technologies, owned by Israel Chemicals (TASE: CLIM) and Delek Group (TASE: DLEKG), has signed an agreement to produce and supply two desalination facilities for a copper smelting and refining factory in southwestern Peru.
The plants, which will supply both drinking water and the water needed for the factories’ industrial processes, will cost $3.8 million. The facilities will be sent to Peru in the second half of 2005.
IDE president and CEO Avshalom Felber said that the agreement was the company’s third this year for providing thermal technology desalination facilities. Other facilities were set up in India and Spain.
Felber added that the industrial desalination market was growing at 7% a year, although low industrial growth had limited market expansion to 2% this year. The market for desalinated drinking water, on the other hand, including Arab countries, is growing by 10-15% a year. The growth rate in the relevant market for the Israeli desalination industry is 8-11%.
Most demand for desalination facilities is in countries like Spain, Italy, and the US, which suffer from a lack of drinking water and poor water quality, as result of a lack of precipitation in certain areas.
Developing countries like India and China also recently began publishing desalination tenders, due to a growing shortage of drinking water. The tenders are for 70-100 million cubic meters per plant. Since its founding, IDE has supplied over 340 desalination facilities in 40 countries.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 13, 2004