The Tribune

By Natario McKenzie

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

BISX-listed Consolidated Water is aiming to move “full speed ahead” with its 50/50 western New Providence water supply joint venture in the coming weeks, pledging that customers in the area will see improved water quality by 2012 year-end.

During a tour of the company’s Blue Hills seawater desalination plant, Bryan Russell, head of Consolidated Water (Bahamas), said that plant construction as part of the joint venture with New Providence Development Company (NPDevCo) would begin “in the next week or so”.

Emphasising that the tie-up was completely separate from Consolidated Water’s existing Blue Hills and Windsor Field reverse osmosis plant operations, Mr Russell said: “All of the engineering work has been done; a lot of the initial plans, the surveys of the system and appraisal of the distribution system.

“Consolidated Water and NPDevCo have people on the ground finalising the details. They submitted their impact assessments. Everything is being reviewed. From what I see at the moment, everything seems great and they will be moving full speed ahead in the next week or so. That’s when operations will get underway in constructing the plant, getting the facilities in place and augmenting what’s already there.”

Consolidated Water’s joint venture with NPDevCo has resulted in a 25-year exclusive water supply franchise for western New Providence, marking the company’s first retail venture outside the Cayman Islands.

“At the moment there is an operational and distribution network there,” Mr Russell said of existing water supply infrastructure in western New Providence.

“What will start now is that our guys will be fully engaged, along with the folks from NPDevCo, on improving and augmenting their supplies. The folks in that area should see within the next months or so a more consistent and reliable supply of water, and the water quality will definitely increase. They will see that by the end of the year and the early part of next year.”

Ramjeet Jerrybandan , Consolidated Water’s vice-president of overseas operations, told Tribune Business that the Blue Hill and Windsor Field plants produce a combined 12 million gallons per day, which is close to two-thirds of the company’s total production capacity Caribbean-wide.

“We do a guaranteed amount of 12 million imperial gallons per day. The Bahamas is close to two-thirds of our production capacity,” Mr Jerrybandan said.

“We are here to stay in the Bahamas. We have invested a lot of money into the Bahamas. We love doing business in the Bahamas, and we have a 20-year contract on this (Blue Hills) plant. We stand ready to increase our capacity for whatever the Water and Sewerage Corporation requires from us.”

Mr Jerrybandan added: “In seawater desalination, energy is the single highest cost. Probably close to 60 per cent of the price of making water is energy.

“That is factored in very highly. That is why we have diesel-driven high pressure pumps, because we have been able to produce the water at a much cheaper price for Water and Sewerage by using diesel engines as opposed to electric motors,”