Insights

What does $100 crude and $4 gas mean for water?

I have been at the Ontario Water Summit this week. It was well attended, and will certainly help make the connection between the province and water technology, but I found myself talking a lot more about gas than water at the event. It seems that excitement about shale gas is straying towards heresy. People are beginning to say that there ...

The tantalising prospect of export growth

We were awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the international trade category this week. It is something that the British government does to encourage exporters, and involves a visit to Buckingham Palace and the right to use the Queen’s Award logo on our stationery.

Needless to say it does not mean much to our readers because 95 ...

Water meets money meets street protest

GWI’s Global Water Summit in Berlin earlier this week hit the big time. We attracted a street protest. It may have been quite small (only about 20 people) and well behaved (there were three policemen but no tear gas), but it puts our event right up there with the G8, the World Economic Forum and Bilderberg.

It seems that ...

Can Pentair buy X-Flow’s people as well?

Pentair’s acquisition of Norit’s clean process technologies (CPT) division looks like a fair deal for both sides. The price (€503 million or 2.3x 2010 revenues) was steep, but not so expensive that the company is doomed to be crushed by expectations in the same way that Zenon was crushed by GE’s expectations after the latter paid ...

Customer satisfaction beats cheap water

I was in Riyadh this week for a presentation by the National Water Company on its performance in 2010. Anyone unconvinced by what private sector participation can do for a water utility should take a look at the transformation which the company has brought about in the standard of water services in Jeddah and Riyadh.

I will be writing in ...

The point of minimum economic visibility

It is difficult not to feel that the global economy has hit a fog patch, in which it is difficult to see the best way forward. The recovery in Europe and North America seems to be levelling out. The Middle East region – which has delivered dependable growth for the water sector for the past decade – is beset by political uncertainty ...