Market forces drive pumps

The pump is the second most commonly manufactured machine in the world today. Since pumps are used in all spheres of life, a growing population automatically leads to a growth of the pumps market. Investment in utilities in particular means big business for pump manufacturers.

Water and wastewater has long been an important industry for the global pumps market, accounting for around 35% of its total revenues in 2005, according to Frost and Sullivan. The market research firm expects growth of the pumps market in the water and wastewater industry to be fuelled by industrial expansion, upgrading of old water treatment plants, and new construction activity from 2006 to 2012.

The revenues generated in 2005 totalled US $8.7 billion. This was 4% higher than the previous year's figure, meaning growth in water and wastewater outstripped the 2.8% growth rate for the pumps sector as a whole. And water and wastewater look set to remain prime markets for pumps. Frost and Sullivan forecasts the water industry will have a growth rate of 4-5% for the period 2006-2012, while the wastewater industry will experience growth of 7-8% for the same period.

Regional promise

Though Frost and Sullivan reports that Latin America and Asia Pacific are the most promising regions, it is not hard to see why this forecast should hold true for the Middle East as well. Water consumption is already in epic proportions and demand for freshwater is on the rise here. The massive investments in desalination plants, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular, translate into moneymaking opportunities for pump manufacturers.

Though desalination projects tend to be carried out by international EPC contractors as a turnkey package, companies who make seawater pumps, such as KSB and Ebara, have a lot to gain. KSB's managing director in the UAE, Erwin Maier, estimates growth in desalination to be between 10-20%.

Similarly, with a drive to increase water efficiency, more and more wastewater plants are being constructed in a recycling effort. Pumps will be required to transport the wastewater across cities to and from sewage farms. Until recently, this has been done by truck transfer. Now that the infrastructure is being upgraded it is becoming a pumping application, rather than a vehicular one. This is a much more efficient way of transporting sewage.

In light of the new business opportunities, it must not be forgotten that competition is rife. Pumps have been around for a long time and the global market is fragmented. In its World Pumps report for 2005, the McIlvaine company found that around 10 000 firms were manufacturing industrial pumps. Only five, however, achieved pump sales over US $1 billion for that year. The five were ITT, Grundfos, Flowserve, Ebara and KSB, with ITT taking 12% of the market. All are active players in the region.

With such competition and little in the way of recent technological breakthroughs in the pump sector, manufacturers are turning their attention towards becoming more customer-focused and providing value-added services in a bid to stand out from the crowd.

Jebel Ali-based contractor Hydrolink is taking a more technical approach to improving the flushing services it offers by using electronic control modules (ECMs), as well as programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

"We have a fleet of flushing pumps that are PLC-automated," said Colin Addison, business development manager for Hydrolink's pumps division. "So we can preset them and run them until the operation is complete. We have a fully integrated ECM system. With our advanced pumpsets you can control your pump speed by inching it up to a certain duty point or run-out point.

"What adds value to the pumpset is the control system. Without the control system the pumpset is useless. All major four-stroke diesel engines are now being introduced for the full ECM control. This means you can push a button to start the diesel and you can inch the diesel speed up with a touchpad control."

Though ECMs have been around for the past nine years or so, Hydrolink is adding the extra advantage of being able to operate the system remotely via the internet, as Addison explained.

"We take it a step further by isolating the controller from the engine. We integrate them into another form of control system, whereby we can operate them from a control room or by radio control. We use the same technology as ECM where we can start it, run it up and actually integrate it into a control-kit computer 10 000 miles away. You can do this as long as you have a PLC and are linked to the internet. Centralised PLC-control systems are gradually being introduced to the region."

Efficiency drive

Being able to control the pump speed so precisely is an energy saver - and this is one of the challenges increased demand for pumps has brought with it. Due to the cost of building utility infrastructure, pump manufacturers will always be under pressure to make their products as energy-efficient as possible.

The energy consumption of pumps is dependent on their design and how they are operated. Though energy costs are relatively low in the Middle East, efficient operation will increase a pump's lifespan and reduce the probability of incurring high maintenance costs.

Operation and maintenance costs can even be more significant than the original purchase. Maintenance thus represents an excellent business for pump manufacturers in itself. Some manufacturers are even selling their pumps at production cost or less, just to be sure of gaining the lucrative maintenance contracts. The fact that the pump rental business is currently booming is an indication of just how much maintenance and repair work is taking place. This all means that projected lifecycle costs (LCC) need to be taken into account at the design stage. Companies who tackle efficiency and LCC issues effectively will be the ones who get the most business.

Impeller innovation

Pump manufacturers are responding to the new challenges in a number of ways. One way is adjusting the size and position of the impellers, a rotating component of the pump, which transfers energy from the motor to the fluid.

"They have started designing impellers so that they operate at their most efficient," said Duncan Derrick, general manager for Ebara in the UAE. "On some of the larger pumps this has to be done regularly. You have to find the best point to operate the pump. If you operate the pump at its most efficient or in that area, the pump is at its most comfortable. It will then operate for a longer period and in a better operating condition."

KSB's Maier, whose company has designed a completely new pump for reverse osmosis application, corroborates Derrick's view. "Efficiency is the most important factor for pumps. Our energy saving comes from the optimisation of the size of the impellers so that we are working to the optimum of what is physically possible. Other companies are using old designs of pumps for the oil business. We have about 2% better efficiency than any of our competitors."

To reduce energy consumption, KSB uses energy recovery devices. In the early days of reverse osmosis, it was discovered that most of the hydraulic energy put into the process was wasted in the form of a pressurised brine waste stream, which was discharged from the membranes. Nowadays waste brine energy can be recovered directly as hydraulic energy through the pressurisation of the feed fluid, making reverse osmosis a lot more energy-competitive.

With the pumps market being so saturated, companies will have to offer something special if they are to win the big desalination or sewage contracts awarded by the municipalities. Nonetheless, with further opportunities in pumps for the power sector and in the developing field of district cooling, all amid predictions that annual sales of industrial pumps will reach US $38 billion in 2011, there is everything to play for.

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