IDE wins Chennai water plant job - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

IDE wins Chennai water plant job - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

IDE wins Chennai water plant job
By Yoram Gabison
Tags: Israel news

IDE Technologies has won a tender to build a second seawater desalination plant in Chennai, India's fifth biggest city, along with the Indian company VA Tech Wabag.

The two companies will be building this second desalination facility for the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board. The Israeli group will own a 30% interest in the plant.


The joint Israeli-Indian venture will plan, procure and build the plant at Nemmili, a site about 35 kilometers south of Chennai, at a cost of about $120 million, funded by the Indian government.

The plant will have a capacity of more than 30 million cubic meters of water a day. The water will be treated using reverse osmosis technology.

Following the plant's inauguration in about two years, the joint venture will operate it for seven years in exchange for $110 million.

The plant is supposed to supply Chennai's southern suburbs, an area formerly known as Madras, and the high-tech zone.

Chennai is a major exporter of cars and software, second only to Bangalore.

Wabag, which is controlled by the private equity fund ICICI, projects that Chennai's consumption of desalinated water will increase from the current 1.2 million cubic meters a day to 2 million cubic meters a day in 2025. India's consumption of desalinated water is projected to increase by 15% a year.

IDE Technologies is owned by Yitzhak Tshuva's Delek Group and Idan Ofer's chemicals group ICL. The group was chosen by virtue of its experience in building large-scale reverse-osmosis desalination plants, including in India.

In other IDE news, last week the cash-strapped state of California approved a $550 million allocation of private-activity bonds for the construction of a desalination plant with a capacity of 60 million cubic meters a year for the city of Carlsbad.