EBI

The Australian arm of Paris-based Veolia Water has received a contract valued at $830 million U.S. from coal-seam gas producer QCG to operate three water treatment plants in Australia’s Surat Basin area. Under the 20-year contract, Veolia Water will operate and maintain facilities that combine ultrafiltration, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and brine concentration technologies to treat groundwater that’s generated during the production of natural gas from coal beds. QGC’s goal is to treat the groundwater to a quality that will allow it to be used in agricultural, industrial, and municipal applications. Two of the three facilities are under construction at QGC’s Kenya and Woleebe Creek sites. The third treatment plant is operating at QGC’s Windibri site. “This is QGC’s biggest operational contract to date, and local communities are poised to benefit for decades to come,” said Walter Simpson, QGC’s operations director.  

In a move designed to strengthen a regional base in Brazil to serve the South American market, leading global engineering, management and development consultancy Mott MacDonald Group (Croydon, U.K.) announced that it will acquire Habtec Engenharia Ambiental, a Brazilian environmental consulting and engineering firm employing approximately 80 professionals. Habtec provides a range of services including environmental impact assessment, compliance support, monitoring, and environmental education program support for companies such as Petrobras, BG Brasil, Shell, Vale, Furnas, and Repsol Sinopec. Mott MacDonald said that the addition of Habtec will significantly augment a business base in Brazil that goes back 40 years and includes major infrastructure projects such as the Rodoanel highway Sao Paulo Concession, the Pernambuco power project, the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro metropolitan transit systems, the Rio-Niteroi bridge, and the Campinas to Mogi Mirim highway.  

Weston Solutions Inc. (West Chester, PA) has received a Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team (START) IV contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide response-related services in Region 8. Under the contract, Weston will provide emergency response, preparedness and prevention, assessment, technical, data management, and training support services in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The contract has a three-year base period and two 2-year option, with a maximum projected value of $69.3 million over its full lifetime. Although Weston has been a Superfund contractor for EPA in all 10 regions, this is its first START contract in Region 8, the company said.  

In a move to expand its pollution control business in certain geographic and product and service markets, air-pollution control (APC) company CECO Environmental Corp. (Cincinnati, OH) has entered into a definitive agreement with Met-Pro Corp. (Harleysville, PA) whereby CECO will acquire the product recovery, pollution control, fluid handling, and filtration systems provider for approximately $210 million in stock and cash. The value of the deal, at $13.75 per share of Met-Pro common stock, represents a 43% premium over the Met-Pro share price as of the close of trading on April 19, according to CECO. The company said that the combination of the two companies “creates a clear global market leader in air pollution control, product recovery, and fluid handling technology,” through a “highly complementary” line of products serving more than 11,500 customers worldwide. The combined company will have pro forma annual revenue of about $300 million.  

Abengoa (Seville, Spain) announced that it has entered into an “exclusivity” agreement with funds advised by investment firm Triton Partners (Frankfurt, Germany) under which Abengoa will sell the assets of its industrial waste management subsidiary Befesa to the funds. According to Abengoa, the transaction values the Befesa assets at approximately €1.075 billion (about $1.406 billion U.S.). With net debt adjustments, Abengoa’s total consideration would amount to €625 million, consisting of €352 million in cash, a vendor note of €48 million, and a four-year maturity and deferred consideration value of €225 million. Befesa employs more than 2,000 people at plants in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Turkey, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, and Peru. “This agreement is a new step towards our strategy to focus on our core activities and to reduce our net leverage,” said Manuel Sanchez Ortega, CEO of Abengoa, which has significant development activity in the area of renewable energy. Befesa Chairman Javier Molina expressed his belief that “Triton would be a fantastic partner for Befesa at this stage, since it would provide continuity to our growth project and to the expansion plans that we have for the company.”