VA Tech Wabag looks to expand overseas presence; bags $100 mn project in Dubai
India’s leading water technology company VA Tech Wabag is looking to cash in on growing business opportunities in the water sector armed with its proven technical solutions and execution expertise in large projects. The company is betting on bagging large contracts across several geographies particularly in water & wastewater treatment and desalination space and is hopeful of pushing up share of international contracts in its overall order book to 60 per cent in the near term from 50 per cent.
The Chennai-based company is looking to set up large desalination projects as they come up for bidding in India and the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and Egypt, over the next five years. It has announced the securing an order of about $100 million towards engineering and procurement activities in relation to a 120 million gallons per day (MiGD) Hassyan Sea Water Reverse Osmosis project in United Arab Emirates.
The order was secured from Green EPC, a Utico FZC subsidiary, who is the prime EPC contractor for this project.
Water & environment-related issues have gained prominence globally and VA Tech Wabag sees the water technology space to be buoyant in coming years as the project funding landscape gets matures and focus on water recycle and reuse gets heightened.
“Over the past two decades, we have built strong capabilities in the water space. We have competent technology, domain expertise and experience of having taken up large contracts. We would be preferred partners to governments, municipalities, urban bodies and industrial customers”, said VA Tech Wabag MD & Group CEO Rajiv Mittal.
Mittal said over next several years, technology will ensure that the cost of treated and reuse water continues to come down. “Large water projects, be it wastewater treatment or desalination, would continue to witness energy efficiency. The cost of large desal water projects using reverse osmosis is coming down as cost of membranes is also going down. We have set up several desal projects and the modular nature of the business would mean that we can take up projects of the tune of 500 MLD or more”, said Mittal.
Commenting upon the most recent order, Mittal said the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has selected Utico FZC as the preferred bidder to build the SWRO plant and operate it for 35 years. This project is under the independent water producer (IWP) model, wherein DEWA will off-take 100 per cent of the water from the plant.
“Our job in this projects is taking care of design & enginering and being supplier of specialised equitpment as well as look after installation”, said Mittal.
The company informed that the desalination plant is planned to be commissioned in phases by March 2024 and shall be the largest IWP in Dubai. The project is in the direction of Dubai’s Clean Energy Strategy 2050 initiative to maximise the use of green energy for the production of desalinated water and aims at using solar power to supplement the power requirement of the plant during day time.
“This is a significant break-through for WABAG in the UAE enabling us to showcase our technical capabilities and innovative solutions to ensure timely completion of this prestigious, challenging and fast track Desalination project of national importance with team Utico & Green EPC. With our first order in UAE, we have further consolidated our presence in the middle east region in line with our long-term vision”, said VA Tech Wabag’s CEO (Middle East & Africa Cluster) Deep Raj Saxena.
