Media Update, page-2840

@stockrock sorry to nitpick all the time, but I like a good debate.

Note that the whole push behind China's investment is protection of water bodies (lakes/rivers). There was a recognition that they were going to hit big water accessibility issues if they didn't do something about it, and that it would limit both health and industry. The regional areas also overlap a poverty alleviation strategy, trying to bring poorer villages up to a higher standard of living.

Fluence's MABR has been recognized in China as a technology that deals with high volume fluctuations of human wastewater. So tourist areas, highway rest stops/train stations are one type of usage, and then small villages clusters. All to do with those effluent flows not reaching waterways untreated. In the North, where it is a colder climate, MABR has been proven to work better than some other technologies for maintaining biological activity. China is starting to work on reuse now, but we have not seen enough data from this newer use case to see what ramifications this will have on installation spreads.

Farming and textiles is unsuitable for MABR installations. The COD of the water is too concentrated to support the type of biological activity that makes MABR work properly (it doesn't support the right mix of bacteria to form the biofilm). Farming is more suitable for anaerobic digestion. Fluence were at one stage working on a centralized sludge hub, to take the sludge from multiple MABR units for treatment. Not sure where they are with this R&D under Richard and with some staff moving on from Israel. Multiple cluster MABR orders with a centralized Fluence sludge treatment facility would make for an interesting model. Partners could then also get additional funds for carting around sludge and then selling the treated sludge for other uses like fertilizers.

SE Asia is adopting the Chinese model in some ways.
Cambodia's MABR based SUBRE greenfield installations are as a direct result of working with Chinese companies and getting Chinese investment and adopting the Chinese effluent standards. They also have money coming in from other countries like Japan, when they get those sorts of funds then Japanese companies like Kubota will win the right to install plants of their own.

In the Philippines, DAO-2016-08 also recognizes pollution into water bodies as a big factor. The main installations have been linked with Ayala and have been at their resorts and residential compounds, to limit untreated effluent. The time has come now where companies that are non-compliant are being fined, so there is a government ruling pushing businesses to take action into investing in wastewater treatment. Nirobox has also been supported in the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

With the US market, again, farming and textiles is not suitable for MABR. The main areas are going to be man camps for oil and gas, caravan parks, rest stops. Then WaaS for resorts. The man camp thing is interesting, as because they are more temporary types of caravan park type communes, they are outside of the traditional US infrastructure coverage. It seems because of this they have been largely ignored by the traditional American infrastructure companies. The US is so vast, that there are so many use case scenarios, however it is about finding the right partners to help drive these installations, with the government in general being slack in terms of enforcing regulations.

Fluence's SUBRE is not quite ready yet. They were working on a drop-in model, which makes installation a much better process. Most larger WWTPs that need extra capacity and nutrient removal cannot afford to shut down half their plant for a few weeks to do a fresh installation. It isn't feasible to do. When SUBRE is drop-in capable then we will likely see more traction worldwide. Let DuPont and Suez also invest a bit more funding into breaking down the barriers and educating the industry in the meantime. Fluence seems cheaper, so could probably win in a fair tender, especially with a few more greenfield installations the size that are currently going into Cambodia to get some large use-cases into the portfolio.

There is plenty of low-hanging fruit worldwide. Each year Fluence proves itself a bit more capable and MABR is definitely gaining more trust. We will have to see the evolution of use-cases. There are plenty of companies and funds worldwide that are always looking to buy a solid technology. It just depends if Fluence will be looking to sell. It seems that a dual-listing in the US will be on the cards once Fluence is profitable but requires additional expansion funding, that exposure to the wider US investment community may bring up more interesting partners and use-cases.