15 Largest Desalination Companies in the World

In this article we take a look at the 15 Largest Desalination Companies in the World.

Freshwater needs are on an ever-rising trend around the world, and the pressure lies on the largest desalination companies in the world to mitigate the water stress. With over 97.5% of the total, earth water being saltwater and over one-third of the world still residing in areas experiencing water stress, seawater presents a huge potential to cater to the water demands of the world. Water is inevitable to human existence. It is an essential part of a healthy livelihood that we use at every point of our daily lives and yet, not even 1% of the world’s freshwater is accessible to us. That’s where desalination comes into picture – the process by which saltwater from the oceans is turned into freshwater for human use. With technology becoming widely available, desalination plants today are abundant and occupy a growing market. 

The desalination market is projected to grow at 9.5% and is expected to reach the $32 billion mark by 2025. Not surprising, as the growing global population keeps creating pressure on freshwater resources, which are not only limited, but often hard to access. Some areas are heavily dependent on desalination plants, even though the cost of operation might be high, as the next best would be to ship water which would ultimately be a more costly affair. Innovation and technology has made the process of desalination much cheaper to undertake, which is also why a lot of countries are looking to build desalination plants and several new players are entering the industry. As water is a basic need, the demand for it is hardly ever expected to fall, therefore desalination and water stocks are often safe and lucrative investments. 

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As focus shifts towards green investments, several oil and gas and utilities sector investments are becoming less attractive. Even as investors pull out of the largest energy companies for renewable alternatives, investors are looking to invest in the top desalination companies, and it is fast becoming one of the upcoming green investment channels to look out for. 

Traditionally water has been supplied through large-scale distribution models typically owned by governments or large companies. Being one of the heavy industries, structures have often been regulated as well. However, in recent years as climate change is becoming more evident and traditional suppliers are getting ever more strained, the collaborations between public and private companies also offer a huge potential. Large corporations like GE (NYSE:GE) and LG have been vying to enter the market with their desalination plants projects. 

French company Veolia (NYSE:VE) is one of the top players in our list of largest desalination companies that operates in water, environmental services and energy, with its desalination unit coming under the water management operations that accounts for 45% of the revenues for the company. However, along with large corporations several  new players have made a presence, including America’s AquaVenture Holdings (NYSE:WAAS) that has operations in desalination and other water purification techniques in a water-as-a-service (WAAS) model catering to the mainland United States and several Caribbean islands. 

While there are desalination projects coming up across the world, Saudi Arabia by far has the most number of desalination plants and is the largest consumer, while the United States comes a close second.  To determine the largest desalination companies in our present list we have used data provided by Global Water Intelligence, that provides a picture of companies with the largest number of project awards for desalination plants secured by the companies. We have further ranked the companies by their revenue to arrive at our list of key players. 

Let’s take a look at the largest desalination companies in the world. 

15. Biwater 

Revenue – $35 million

Wastewater solutions company, Biwater, delves in the desalination space with several plants and projects across the US and Middle East. The British company’s Desalination and Membrane Treatment Centre of Excellence in California has a global installed membrane treatment capacity of 1,703 million liters per day , which is equal to a whopping 681 Olympic size swimming pools per day! 

14. HWTT 

Revenue – $45 million

The Hangzhou Water Treatment Technology Development Center Co., Ltd, in China caters to consumers across industry and public organizations like Municipal, steel, nuclear power. The company currently has projects located in different countries and regions in Asia, the Middle East and others. 

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13. IDE Technologies

Revenue – $67 million

Israel’s water desalination company, IDE Technologies, is one of the key players in desalination. The company supplies 70% of the country’s potable water with its largest local plant, located close to  Tel Aviv, producing over 165 million gallons of freshwater every day! 

Pixabay/Public domain

12. Wetico

Revenue – $98.4 million

Water & Environment Technologies Co. Ltd. (WETICO) is one of the top players in the Saudi market. The company acquired a major portion of the Saudi Wastewater treatment plant market in the early 2000s while also dominating the  Reverse Osmosis segment.

Pixabay/Public Domain

11. Shanghai Safbon

Revenue – $145.7 million

Shanghai Safbon Water Service Co., Ltd.  is a public  listed Chinese company. With a market capitalization of $1 billion, the water treatment entity is involved in industrial water treatment, municipal sewage treatment system, solid waste disposal, natural gas regulator station, and distributed energy. 

10. Aquatech

Revenue – $157 million

Pennsylvania based water treatment company, Aquatech, has over 1,000 water management projects in over 60 countries across the world. The company caters to  industrial and infrastructure markets and delves into desalination, water recycle and reuse, and zero liquid discharge (ZLD).  

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9. VA Tech Wabag

Revenue – $341.5 million

The Indian MNC, headquartered in Chennai has undertaken over 6,000 water projects in over 30 countries. The pure-play water management company focuses on conservation, optimization, recycling and reuse of resources and has a legacy of over 90 years. 

Pixabay/Public Domain

8. Hyflux

Revenue – $353.6 million

Providing global sustainable solutions, Hyflux, is listed on Singapore Stock Exchange. The Group is responsible for building Singapore’s first water recycling plant and two seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants, along with some of the largest SWRO desalination plants in Algeria, China, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. The company is currently involved in developing an Integrated Water and Power Project and Singapore’s largest waste-to-energy plant.

Pixabay /Public Domain

7. Metito

Revenue – $1,530 million

Metito is involved in provision of  total intelligent water management solutions mainly operating in the design and build, specialty chemicals, and utilities business areas. Along with desalination and water re-use and industrial solutions, the company is also into  investing in water and wastewater assets and structuring both Greenfield and Brownfield schemes under project finance structures. 

6. Abengoa 

Revenue – $1,777.6 million

Spain’s Abengoa operates in the energy and water sectors. The company has constructed over  30 desalination plants  in Spain, Africa, Latin America, Asia and Middle East, which produce  drinking and industrial water through conventional and advanced membrane processes from saline water. The company’s current desalinated water installed capacity is over 1.7 million m3/day and another 2.6 millions m3/day under construction

5. Hitachi Zosen 

Revenue – $3,853.2 million

Japanese industrial and engineering company, Hitachi Zosen specializes in  waste treatment plants, industrial plants,  and power plants among others. The company’s Australian subsidiary, Osmoflo is a desalination company having presence in Australia, the Middle East, Oman and India. The company and its subsidiary has fast track emergency containerized seawater desalination plants that can be mobilized to  client’s sites anywhere in the world.

4. Acciona

Revenue – $8,560.4 million

Another Spanish player that is one of the largest desalination companies in the world, Acciona, delves in development and management of infrastructure of all kinds including construction, water and industrial,  and renewable energy. The company provides over 455HM3 of desalinated water. 

3. Doosan Heavy

Revenue – $14,138.8 million

South Korean Conglomerate, Doosan Heavy Industries, has an impressive portfolio in desalination including Multi-Stage Flash (MSF), Multi-Effect Distillation (MED), and Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants. The company won 230 billion won ($203.9 million) desalination project in Oman in 2018, along with several other projects in the Middle East. However, the 2018-2019 period has been game changing in the desalination space as major Gulf projects were awarded to a few key players which included our top 2. 

2. Suez

Revenue – $21,447.3 million

One of the biggest companies by contracted capacity of desalination projects, Suez, only makes second position in our list. The company added an impressive 350,000m3/d of capacity between July 2018 and June 2019. However, by revenue the world leader’s position is strongly threatened by our top contender. 

1.Veolia

Revenue – $32,368.2 million

Veolia Environnement S.A recently acquired 29.9% of Suez’s capital from Engie, which further solidifies its position as the largest desalination company in the world with the strongest position in the industry. The French MNC has over nearly 179,000 employees across the world. The company has been on the forefront in the Gulf mega-projects deals and already operates in  2,300 sites in 108 countries across the world. 

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Disclosure: No positions. 15 Largest Desalination Companies in the world is originally published on Insider Monkey.