ON A ROLL

* Aqualia – the water division of Spanish construction group FCC – is getting hard to avoid.

After signing a €1.5 billion contract in Sicily in December, the company added another €1.5 billion to its international backlog in January with a 40-year concession in Portugal. The contract involves integrated water cycle for nine municipal councils with a population of around 200,000 in Lezíria del Tajo, near Lisbon. Aqualia beat off competition from AGS, Indaqua and Aquapor to land the contract and its winning bid involves a commitment to an investment of €200 million (a quarter of which is to come from public funds) in the construction of a new plant and the renovation of existing infrastructure. The contract is expected to generate income of €37 million per year. Aqualia heads a consortium that includes the Portuguese company Lena and it will be the operator in the mixed private/public company which is due to be set up to carry out the contract.

* Last year Aqualia bagged two desalination projects in Algeria working alongside OHL’s Inima subsidiary. Now the two compatriots have agreed to join forces to pursue desalination projects worldwide outside Spain and Latin America. Within days of the deal, the pair announced that they had reached the shortlist of three for Israel\'s Hadera desalination plant (the other two consortia were led by GE Ionics and IDE). For more information on Aqualia\'s ambitions see the interview with the international development director Miguel Jurado on p18.

* Aqualia’s parent company FCC is convinced it got the better half of the deal when it split from Veolia, but the French company is not looking back. At the beginning of February it announced healthy top line organic growth of 12%, taking total revenues of €25.2 billion in 2005. Veolia Water increased like for like revenues by 14.3% to €8.9 billion. The gains are credited to growth at home and abroad. French growth of 4.5% is led by good performance in the distribution business and growth from the engineering business, while outside France, like-for-like revenue was up 19.7% excluding Water Solutions & Technologies. Of all regions, the Asia Pacific led the way with more than 25%, due to the startup contracts in China and the service business in Japan.

* Suez also published revenue figures for 2005. The French company’s €41.5 billion sales amount to 6.3% of organic growth. Of that figure, €6.5 billion was derived from its water business. Its European operation recorded 5.1% growth with signings of new sanitation and services contracts, mainly in France and by Agbar in Spain. Degrémont benefited from progress in completion of new contracts in South America and Australia, recording organic growth of 14.3%, while other activities, outside Europe, recorded positive organic growth of 8.9% in both water and waste services, following the renegotiation of rates in Chile, sales rise at Lydec and gains from new water contracts in China.