International Business Briefs: carbon offset, and water treatment and engineering

The Canadian company, Hydro-Québec has announced that it is to use emission credits that it has earned for its hydropower production to offset the greenhouse gas emissions that will be emitted by the company’s new 800MW combined-cycle gas-fired power plant. The scheme is being carried out in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol.

Leader in the water filtration, separation and purification industry, Pall Corporation, based in the US, has announced that its sales for the fourth quarter grew 29.5% to US$428.9 million compared to the same period last year. For the year, sales amounted to over US$1,290 million compared to over US$1,235 million last year.

Engineering company Washington Group International has announced two contracts totalling US$27 million from the Southern Nevada Water Authority. The company has been awarded a US$22.3 million contract to construct a pumping station at a reservoir in North Las Vegas, and a US$4.7 million contract to construct a weir that will be part of a wetlands protection project in the Las Vegas Wash.

California company Earth Tech has announced that it has won a design/build/operate contract from the Fideicomiso del Sistema de Aguas Residuales del Alto Rio Blanco for a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Orizaba, about 200 kilometres southeast of Mexico City. The 20-year, US$15 million project will be one of the largest anaerobic/aerobic wastewater treatment systems in the world and will treat 28.5 million gallons of wastewater per day. The project is scheduled for completion in August 2004.

Earth Tech has also announced a new sewer system evaluation survey contract from the US city of Atlanta. The one-year contract has two one-year options and the first phase of the six-phase programme has an estimated project cost of US$26 million.