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Aqualia sets up a branch ofice in Chile

Aqualia Infrastructuras established a branch in Chile which will be in charge of executing the frst contract awarded in this Andean county and which for this FCC subsidiary, specializing in end-to-end water manage-ment, represents the entry in a new country offering enormous growth potential in the short and medium term.

The possibilities in this country include seawater desalination plants, mainly with mining companies as clients, since, due to the restrictions in the existing market for

purchase of water rights, these clients are forced to produce their own drinking water.

The contract, worth 25 million Euros, con-templates the development of plant en-gineering and the supply, assembly, and commissioning of the electro-mechanical equipment, a desalination plant with a ca-pacity of 30,000/m 3 /day, as well as the en-tire offshore project.

The desalination plant, purchased by the Chilean company Minera Candelaria -80% owned by the North American frm Freeport and 20% by Japan’s Sumitomo, - will have a production capacity of 30 million liters of drinking water per day, a volume suffcient to supply a population of 175,000 in the northern region of Copiap adjacent to the Atacama Desert.

The most advanced industrial technologies will be applied in the construction of this seawater desalination plant featuring the reverse osmosis process.

Lucas de Marcos, Production Manager of Aqualia Infrastructuras America Division, with the lawyer Andrea Sougarret.