TOKYO/SANTIAGO – Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. has concluded a contract to provide desalination and water-pumping services for a copper mine in northern Chile for 20 years, the Jiji Press reported on Tuesday.
It will be Mitsui’s first desalination project. Its costs are seen reaching around ¥70 billion.
Under the deal, Mitsui and Tedagua, a unit of Spain’s ACS Group with strengths in water-related business, have established a fifty-fifty joint venture, Caitan SpA, to implement the project.
The new firm will build, own and operate a seawater desalination plant and a water conveyance system for the mine run by global resources giant BHP Billiton.
The services are set to begin in the second quarter of 2020.
