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NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
Biloxi, MS, United States, 12/11/2007 - AcquaPro Worldwide, Inc., developer of the world's first full-scale, fully engineered, barge-mounted water desalination system has teamed with Emares Ltd, of the UK to seek a major water supply contract with the utility Marafiq in Saudi Arabia.
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AcquaPro Worldwide, Inc., developer of the world's first large-scale floating desalination plant, has entered into an agreement with Emares Ltd. of the United Kingdom to seek a major water supply contract in Saudi Arabia.
Under terms of the agreement, Biloxi-based AcquaPro Worldwide would provide the system hardware and operational support to Emares, a global industrial procurement and supply company, to produce up to 20 million gallons (75,000 cubic meters) of potable water daily to the industrial zone at Jubail and Yanbu on Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf Coast. The volume is equivalent to the output of four standard AcquaPro plants and the 16-month supply contract would have a minimum value of just over $52 million.
"Joining forces with Emares, which knows the Saudi market well, gives both companies a synergy that puts contracts such as this one within reach," AcquaPro President and CEO Frank Yacenda said. "The desalination market is exploding throughout the Gulf region and we intend to be part of that explosion."
AcquaPro chose the Mississippi Gulf Coast for its headquarters based on the existence of a barge-building industry in the region, and the company anticipates integrating most of its hardware on the Gulf Coast, Yacenda said. Hardware for this project is valued at $70 million.
"We have envisaged AcquaPro as an American industrial product," Yacenda said. "In this case, despite all the negatives of an extremely weak dollar as at present, one positive is that it gives us an export advantage."
The AcquaPro system employs all existing, tried-and-true reverse osmosis (RO) desalination technology mounted in a unique configuration on a large sea-going barge. In the case of the Saudi contract, however, the client, the utility company Marafiq, seeks a modular shore-based plant. As a result, the AcquaPro water plant, which includes containerized RO units and other skid-mountable components, will be decoupled from the barge for this installation.
"We went in search of a modular, mobile desal system specifically to bid on this contract, and we found AcquaPro," Emares Managing Director Matt Smith said. "We are looking forward to many years of mutually fruitful cooperation to seek other contracts both in the Gulf region and elsewhere in the world. Even in Britain we have water shortages that AcquaPro might address."
AcquaPro is exploring potential opportunities in California, Florida and Georgia, all areas facing interim and long-term water shortages that the company's system might address rapidly and economically. An advantage of the AcquaPro system is that it avoids most of the costly and time-consuming political and environmental conflicts that often plague shore-based desalination plants. It can be deployed in a fraction of the time and cost as conventional desal plants.
AcquaPro Worldwide, Inc., is headquartered at 280 rue Petit Bois, Biloxi, Miss. Telephone +1 (228) 385-8858 or email info[.]acquapro.us. Emares Ltd. is based at Woodlands, Eaton Hill, Baslow, Derbyshire. Telephone +44 (1246) 583915 or email emares[.]hotmail.co.uk
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