"WAR for WATER coming"

FORTUNE magazine ... 'privatization of water by large corporations' is "one of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th."

promises to be what oil is? well if it is HALF of water oil was, that will be very DISTURBING hmmm. what are the long term plans of such an initiative? and who are the players

In the past ten years, three giant global corporations have quietly assumed control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent of the world. A 12-month investigation by journalists in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America shows that the results range from questionable to disastrous. And it shows how well-meaning municipal governments in the U.S. and Canada can become vulnerable to the persuasive techniques of these high-powered corporate giants.

www.cbc.ca...

Nice quick read. Wondering who the three major players are in this.

The top two players are Veolia Environment and Suez from France. I'd venture a guess that the third one is Thames Water from the UK.

This is an important topic. Thanks for the article cpdaman.

Interestingly enough i was just reading up about this at the weekend. The following offers a good overview although with an environmental bais.

www.foe.co.uk...

Suez is at the top of the heap, having recently merged with Lyonnaise Eaux (or some such). They own United Water in the US and supply to about 130 countries.

RWE is german I think and owns some of the water compnaies in the UK as well as other utilities.

The problem seems to be that they are buying, supplying, paying out huge dividends - while actually maintaining debts on the companies - but more importantly they are doing the bare minimum to maintain the infrastructure. This equals poor drinlking water quality. This is becoming a particular problem in countries like the Phillipines.

It is definately worth keeping an eye on - because at some point the debts will need to wiped out and or the infrastructure will need to be maintained. There must be big money to be made someway - government bail outs that sort of thing. We'll have to wait and see.....

Incidently I started looking at water after researching ITT and their involvement in water supplying to developing nations and also, bizarrely in defense technologies. But there you go, that's another story.