In the next four years, sales of cross-flow membranes and equipment to desalinate seawater will rise by 50 percent to $4.3 billion/yr. This is the conclusion reached by the McIlvaine Company in its RO, UF, MF World Markets. (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

Desalination will account for 34 percent of total cross-flow sales of $12.6 billion. This includes the replacement membranes and modules as well as the new equipment using microfiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis.  The salt is removed in the reverse osmosis system but either microfiltration or ultrafiltration are used to pre-filter the seawater.

The U.S. market is poised to accelerate as cities want a more secure water supply. San Diego has purchased a system from IDE which will be the largest in North America.  It will process more than 100 million gpd of seawater and produce more than 50 million gpd of drinking water.  Desalination became attractive to San Diego based on reduced operating cost.

Early desalination membranes removed about 98.4 percent of the salt and required an extra pass through a second array of filters.  According to IDE, they cost about $500 each and lasted three years.  Today’s filters extract 99.8 percent of salt, cost $350 and can last seven to eight years, making large-scale desalination feasible.  Power-saving devices employ leftover brine to spin turbines which in turn run pumps, cutting energy use by 45 percent.

There are potentially other technologies in the wings which reduce desalination costs.  Lockheed Martin has developed a special material that may not need as much energy for filtration as the present polymeric membranes.

Graphene is a substance made of pure carbon. Carbon atoms are arranged in a regular hexagonal or honeycomb pattern in a one-atom thick sheet.  Graphene researchers won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for developing the wonder-material.

Lockheed anticipates that their Perforene filters will be able to provide clean drinking water "at a fraction of the cost of industry-standard reverse osmosis systems."  Perforene is one thousand times stronger than steel, but still has a permeability that is about one hundred times greater than the best competitive membrane out in the market according to Lockheed.  The company is targeting to have a prototype to test in a reverse osmosis plant by 2014 or 2015.

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The top 200 companies enjoy more than 50 percent of the global industrial pump business. Another 5,000 companies average less than $4 million in sales each.  According to the McIlvaine Company in Pumps: World Markets the concentration of the industry has again accelerated. There have been a number of recent acquisitions and geographic expansions.

GE, the nineteenth largest pump company, will move several rungs up the ladder as it acquires Lufkin Industries, Inc., a leading provider of artificial lift technologies for the oil and gas industry and a manufacturer of industrial gears, for approximately $3.3 billion. Artificial lift, used in 94 percent of the roughly one million oil-producing wells around the world, helps lift hydrocarbons to the surface in reservoirs with low pressure and improves the efficiency of naturally flowing wells.  Lufkin will broaden GE oil and gas artificial lift capabilities beyond electric submersible pumps (ESPs) to include rod lift, gas lift, plunger lift, hydraulic lift, progressive cavity pumps and a sophisticated array of well automation and production optimization controls and software. The ESP category of artificial lift is the only lift segment in which Lufkin does not currently compete.

The world’s fifth largest pump company, Weir, has acquired the R Wales group of companies ("R Wales"), a Canadian based manufacturer of specialist rubber and wear resistant linings for the mining, minerals processing and oil sands industries.  The acquisition, which was completed on February 15, 2013, with Canadian facilities in British Columbia and Ontario and a U.S. facility in Arizona, R Wales designs and manufactures rubber lining for pipes, tanks, chutes and hoses and specializes in custom rubber and urethane moulded products, including slurry pump wear parts and mill liners. In 2012, the Wales Group generated revenues in excess of C$30m. The acquisition extends Weir’s aftermarket position in the production and servicing of a wide range of rubber lined wear components for the North American oil sands and mining sectors and complements the existing customer base and product portfolio.

Weir has also advanced its global foundry supply chain strategy, completing the acquisition of the business and assets of the Cheong Foundry in Malaysia on February 6, 2013. Based near Kuala Lumpur, the facility supplies castings to a number of industries, including mining and power. The acquisition enables Weir to add foundry capacity to serve the Asia-Pacific region with high quality products from a best cost sourcing region. In addition, agreement has been reached to acquire the plant, equipment and buildings of Xmeco Foundry Pty. Ltd, a specialist large casting foundry in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Xmeco expands Weir’s capacity and capability on the African continent, enabling the full product range to be locally produced.

The third largest pump company, Grundfos, will expand its Indian production capacity by setting up an additional unit. As part of the expansion plans, with an initiative of making India as the second home, the company plans to invest Rs. 230 crores in the next five years.  Grundfos India has been growing at 30-35 percent since its inception in 1998.  With the turnover of Rs. 318 crores in 2012, Grundfos is looking at Rs. 1000 crores turnover in the next five years.

Number twenty-two in the rankings, Pentair, is planning to invest $50 million in expanding its operations in the UAE.  Pentair wants to increase its $400 million current turnover in the UAE to $1 billion. In particular, the company is looking to invest in a new pump manufacturing facility in the region.

Number twenty-eight in world ranking, Gorman-Rupp Africa, has purchased the business of Pumptron with cash generated from operations. Pumptron has been an international value-added distributor for Gorman-Rupp for over twenty-five years and will further enhance the company’s continuing international expansion. Founded in 1986, Pumptron is a provider of water-related pumping solutions primarily serving the construction, mining, agricultural and municipal markets in South Africa and, increasingly, throughout other sub-Sahara African countries. Pumptron is headquartered in Johannesburg with operating locations in Cape Town and Durban and had approximately $10 million in revenue during its fiscal year 2012, which includes sales of Gorman-Rupp products.

The Gorman-Rupp subsidiary, National Pump Company, purchased American Turbine Pump Companies ("ATP").  Founded in 1975, ATP is a group of companies that collectively are a leading manufacturer and distributor of energy-efficient vertical turbine and submersible pumps primarily serving agricultural, municipal and industrial markets both domestically and globally. During 2011, ATP had approximately $15 million in revenue from sales of its products through its Lubbock, Texas headquarters and two other locations in Houston, Texas and Fresno, California.

ITT Corporation has dropped from the top of the leader board when it divested its Xylem companies. But it is growing again. It has signed an agreement to acquire Joh. Heinr Bornemann GmbH.  Bornemann Pumps is a global provider of highly engineered pumps and systems for the oil and gas industry.  Headquartered in Germany, Bornemann Pumps has a strong international installed base of multiphase pumping systems for the oil and gas market. The company also serves the industrial, food and pharmaceutical sectors. Founded in 1853, Bornemann has a solid record of growth with estimated fiscal 2012 revenue of €115 million and employs more than 550 employees globally.

Taco, Inc., of Cranston, RI, has purchased Hydroflo Pumps of Fairview, Tenn. Taco recently dedicated a $20-million addition to its headquarters in Cranston. The company, which has sales of $200 million a year, employs about 500 people, the vast majority at the facility in Cranston, with other workers in Fall River, Mass. and Ontario, Canada.  It makes valves, pumps, tanks and electronics for heating and cooling. Hydroflo is a manufacturer of vertical and submersible turbine driven pumps. Hydroflo also operations in Culver, Ind., Marion, Ark., Grand Island, Neb, Brownfield, Texas and Fresno, Calif.

CRI Pumps, a Coimbatore, India-based manufacturer and exporter of pumps, recently signed a business transfer agreement with Pumps & Process Systems of the U.K.  Chief Executive Officer of CRI Chaitanya Koranne said that CRI would shift the industrial pumping solutions manufacturing facility of Pumps & Process Systems in the U.K. to Coimbatore soon.  CRI Pumps’ annual turnover in 2011-2012 was Rs. 850 crore ($160 million), which was expected to increase to Rs. 1,000 crore this year. Nearly 20 percent of the turnover last year was from exports, and it was expected to go up substantially with the acquisition of the U.K. company.  Pumps and Process Systems had a strong presence in sectors such as mining and CRI would be able to tap the opportunities in these areas. 

Xylem, the current # l pump supplier has acquired privately held Heartland Pump Rental & Sales, Inc. for approximately $29 million. Heartland Pump, headquartered in Carterville, Illinois, has been a strong business partner with Godwin in dewatering pump rental, services and systems design since 1995. Godwin is part of the Xylem portfolio.  Heartland Pump employs approximately one hundred people with branches in Evansville, Indiana; Horn Lake, Mississippi; and Nashville, Tennessee.

The Liebherr Group has acquired concrete pump manufacturer Waitzinger, which is based in Neu-Ulm, Germany.  Waitzinger Baumaschinen was founded in 1991 and employs a staff of nearly sixty.  It specializes in the development and production of truck-mounted concrete pumps, trailer concrete pumps and truck mixer concrete pumps. These products will now also be distributed via Liebherr's international sales and service organization.

There is likely to be a continuation of globalization and consolidation of the international pump industry in the coming years.

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