Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux’s Chief Executive Officer and President of the Executive Board, Mr. Gérard Mestrallet today signed in China two contracts for the Group. The signature took place while Mr Mestrallet was visiting China as part of the official delegation accompanying Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

The first contract is for the construction by the Group via its subsidiary Degrémont of a water treatment plant using leading-edge technology in Shanghai. The raw water comes from Huang Pu, which is highly polluted making the treatment technically complicated. High speed decanteurs are used with nitrified filters followed by ozone treatment and finally active carbon filters. The amount of this project is about US$ 23 million. The project is of particular interest as it allows the Group to build the first water treatment plant in China using very elaborate techniques.

The second contract signed is for the construction of an incineration plant in the Pudong Zone. The Group via its subsidiary Ingérop, leads a consortium for this contract involving the construction of an incineration plant representing US$ 28 million. The contract plans for 3 incineration chains with a rate of 15 Tonnes/hour and a global capacity of 360,000 Tonnes per year. This will make it the biggest incineration plant in China.

Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux has been present in China since the late 1970’s Via its subsidiary Degrémont which signed over 70 contracts for the design and construction of drinking water and wastewater treatment plants with several municipalities. In 1991 the group’s construction arm via Dumez-GTM began work on the Ertan Dam on the Yalong River and the underground hydroelectric plant at the Xiaolangdi Dam on the Yellow River. The Ertan Dam is one of the biggest of its kind in the world with a planned electrical capacity of 3,300 megawatts. Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux is also operating six water facilities in China and is a concessionary company in Macau through Sino-French.