Asia is more than ever a conquest zone for French environmental services companies. The region’s needs are ever increasing with the combined effects of population growth – between 1960 and 2002, Indonesia’s population increased from around 88 million to over 275 million inhabitants -, the unbridled expansion of many megacities, strong industrial development since the 1980s, but also, now, the effects of global warming. In fact, new countries such as India and Vietnam are being added to the list of promising markets.
In this context, French initiatives have multiplied in the region in recent days. While Séché Environnement is preparing to acquire Singapore’s leading operator in the field of hazardous waste management, and the Auvergne SME Carbios has just made a breakthrough in plastic recycling in China, Saur plans to accelerate its development with the takeover, announced on Monday, of the Malaysian company IWE. The French number three water company plans to make this water treatment expert its “regional hub” for its operations in the Asia Pacific region, primarily targeting the industrial water market, i.e. services to businesses, and Southeast Asia.
For its part, Suez, which has been present in Asia for around seventy years, took advantage of the recent International Water Week in Singapore to conclude three new contracts.
Suez in full swing
The group has notably signed an agreement with the National Water Agency of Singapore, with a view to deploying and ensuring the maintenance of a smart analysis platform on its network. At the same time, it has won a contract in the Philippines, in association with a local construction company, for the design, construction and operation of a seawater desalination plant. This plant, to be built in Metro Iloilo, in the centre of the archipelago, will supply drinking water to nearly 50,000 homes and cover the water needs of a neighbouring power plant.
Finally, Suez won a new contract in Shandong province (eastern China). This involves a thirty-year concession through a joint venture for the financing, construction and operation of a wastewater treatment plant for an industrial park in Jining, with the aim of achieving 100% reuse of wastewater. The new treatment plant will be able to produce approximately 3.6 million cubic metres of water per year, the equivalent of the volume of approximately 1,500 Olympic swimming pools.
Suez, which claims to have a turnover of 350 million euros in the region and more than a billion taking into account non-consolidated contracts, also won, in June, in association with two local partners, a contract with a total value of 508 million euros in Taiwan, again for a seawater desalination plant. It will benefit around 1.6 million inhabitants and the semiconductor industry in the city of Hsinchu (in the north-east of the island).
Shortage of drinking water
“Taiwan, which has until now been able to rely on monsoon rains, is emblematic of what is happening in Asia. The island was faced with a shortage in the summer of 2021, a consequence of global warming,” underlines Franck Galland, a consultant specializing in water issues and associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research. “Taiwan must move towards desalination,” he adds.
According to him, the need for seawater desalination plants will also increase in Asia, particularly in China. The latter, specifies the consultant-researcher, already has a little over 140 units of this type, or 1.5% of its drinking water production capacity.
This desalination market remains highly competitive. Beyond the Spanish Abengoa or the Israeli IDE Technologies, Veolia and Suez will have to count on the rise of local heavyweights, including Sepco, an entity of the PowerChina conglomerate. The importance of the Chinese partner is therefore more crucial than ever. “Our core target is the mobile units segment. We will not go to fight on the large stations segment,” indicates, for his part, the executive chairman of Saur, Patrick Blethon.
Waste recovery
Furthermore, as shown by the proposed acquisition of Séché Environnement in Singapore, the waste market is more buoyant than ever.
Last November, Veolia signed a contract worth more than 2 billion euros in Hong Kong, where the French environmental services giant has been present for around thirty years. This contract, won with China State Construction – a state-owned behemoth – consists of granting a concession of around twenty years for the extension of a non-recyclable waste recovery site (up to 90 million tonnes in total) with a methane capture rate of 90%.
Veolia and Suez have a long-standing presence in Asia (pictured, a Veolia urban waste tricycle in Singapore). The region, whose need for environmental services continues to grow, is now attracting other French companies
