In this interview, Ghassan Legrand, Senior Vice President Technologies & Products, Mobile Water & Integrated Services for the Middle East and Africa region, discusses the key water challenges facing the mining industry and explores how integrated treatment technologies, mobile services, and digital innovation are helping operators strengthen resilience and optimize resource use.
From water reuse and contaminant removal to artificial intelligence and emergency response capabilities, the conversation highlights how Veolia is supporting the development of more sustainable and efficient mining operations across the region.
Why is water security critical for mining operations in the water-scarce region of the Middle East?
Water security has become a strategic priority for mining operations across the Middle East, where limited freshwater resources and increasing industrial demand place significant pressure on water availability. The United Nations officially declared in January 2026 that the world has entered a state of global water bankruptcy. Mining operations, often located in water-stressed regions, are directly exposed to this risk.
Mining activities rely on a consistent supply of high-quality water for mineral processing, dust suppression, and cooling systems, creating an uninterrupted access
According to Saudi Vision 2030, the Kingdom is rapidly transforming mining into the third economic pillar. With an estimated SAR 9.4 trillion (US$2.5 trillion) in mineral resources: including gold, copper, phosphate, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals, the Kingdom is accelerating exploration, licensing, and investment to establish itself as a global mining hub. This rapid expansion is creating growing demand for advanced water treatment, water reuse, and mobile water solutions across the mining value chain, while reinforcing the importance of effective water management in supporting the sector’s long-term development.
Consequently, many mining operations are located in remote desert regions where freshwater infrastructure is limited, requiring reliable and resilient water treatment solutions. As operators seek to reduce freshwater consumption and strengthen ESG performance, technologies that enable water reuse, recycling, and secure water supply are becoming fundamental to the long-term sustainability and competitiveness of the mining sector.
With more than 170 years of experience in delivering water solutions, Veolia understands that mining operators must be prepared to address a wide range of challenges requiring rapid access to reliable treated water. Unexpected events, such as water treatment plant failures, boiler or condenser tube leaks, and supply chain disruptions, can quickly threaten operations. Moreover, broader challenges, including fluctuations in raw water quality, increasing pressure on water resources, and stricter environmental regulations are driving the need for more flexible and sustainable water management approaches.
What are the critical water management challenges facing mining facilities?
Mining companies today face water-related challenges: ensuring they have enough water, maintaining the right water quality, and planning for sustainable water management throughout the mine's lifecycle. These become even more complex in remote locations, where balancing treatment capacity with storage is difficult and where wastewater often contains contaminants.
The technical complexity of water management in mining extends well beyond securing a water source. Different mining processes, including ore processing, flotation, tailings management, dust suppression, and cooling systems each have distinct water quality requirements.
To address these, mining companies need to clearly identify the processes that are most critical to their operations and ensure those processes remain operational, even during unexpected disruptions. Addressing these challenges requires more than individual treatment technologies, which demands a comprehensive Water Management Plan that considers the entire mine water cycle, from water sourcing and treatment to reuse, storage, discharge, and contingency planning.
The site's water quality and operational requirements play an important role in how mining operation can deploy a range of advanced treatment solutions, including:
- Actiflo® for high-rate clarification;
- AnoxKaldnes™ MBBR for biological wastewater treatment;
- Hydrotech Discfilter for tertiary filtration;
Membrane Technologies such as ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis for high-quality water production and reuse.
For situations requiring rapid deployment or temporary treatment capacity, mobile water services provide flexible, scalable solutions with technologies including Reverse Osmosis (RO), Ultrafiltration (UF), Polishing Demineralization, Chemical Softening, Clarification, and Discfiltration, enabling operators to respond quickly to changing production demands, planned maintenance, emergency events, or seasonal water shortages without compromising operational continuity.
How do Veolia's solutions enhance resilience and sustainability by delivering high-purity water to respond to peaks in demand?
Our solutions are built around three key sustainability pillars: Regenerate, Depollute, and Decarbonize.
Through Regenerate, Veolia helps mining operators maximize water reuse and recycling by treating and recovering mine process water on-site, reducing freshwater dependency and strengthening long-term water security.
Through Depollute, our advanced treatment technologies address complex mining contaminants, including heavy metals, challenging industrial pollutants, and acid mine drainage, helping protect surrounding ecosystems, communities, and supporting compliance with environmental commitments.
Through Decarbonize, our digital solutions, Hubgrade, enable real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and performance optimization of treatment assets, reducing energy consumption, minimizing water consumption , and providing measurable ESG performance insights.
To further enhance operational efficiency, Veolia integrates specialized Chemical Solutions & Monitoring (CSM) into its water treatment offering. By using pre-designed treatment solutions specifically developed for emergency and temporary water requirements, chemical and energy consumption are optimized according to actual operational needs, helping mining companies to reduce operating costs while maintaining treatment performance. CSM Solutions include coagulants and flocculants to improve clarification and solids removal, scale inhibitors to prevent mineral deposits in membranes and heat exchangers, corrosion inhibitors to extend equipment lifetime, pH control agents to maintain optimal treatment conditions, and specialty additives designed to enhance water quality, improve process performance, and support regulatory compliance.
In addition, Veolia’s regeneration plant in Dammam, Saudi Arabia strengthens business continuity by supporting customers with a fleet of de-ionization units that deliver ultra-pure water through off-site regeneration services. This approach eliminates the need for on-site chemical regeneration, reducing environmental risks, minimizing chemical handling requirements, and ensuring a reliable supply of high-quality water.
By combining mobile water assets, optimized chemical solutions, regeneration capabilities, and digital intelligence under one integrated offering, Veolia delivers a comprehensive solution that enhances resilience, reduces environmental impact, and supports mining operators in achieving more sustainable and efficient operations.
How do digitalization and Artificial Intelligence innovation enhance mining water management?
Digitalization and artificial intelligence are embedded throughout our operations, transforming the way water assets are managed and optimized. Through Hubgrade, Veolia’s advanced digital platform, we connect both mobile and permanent water infrastructure into a unified digital ecosystem that combines artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics, and water treatment expertise. This integrated approach shifts plant management from reactive to predictive, enabling smarter, safer, and more sustainable operations.By continuously monitoring operational data in real time, Hubgrade provides 24/7 visibility into system performance, tracking water consumption patterns, identifying demand peaks, and monitoring resource flows across the entire treatment process
This allows operators to improve process control, optimize energy and chemical consumption, enhance overall treatment efficiency, and detect anomalies before they escalate into costly disruptions. In addition, predictive maintenance capabilities and virtual site visits enable remote troubleshooting and faster decision-making, ensuring greater operational resilience and reliability.
Can you share a case where Veolia guaranteed operational continuity for a major Middle Eastern mining and metal facility?
A strong example of Veolia’s ability to support industrial resilience and water transition is our collaboration with Ezz Steel in Egypt. As one of the world’s fastest-growing and most technically advanced steel producers, Ezz Steel operates purpose-built steelmaking plants across Egypt with a production capacity of 7 million tons of long and flat steel products annually. Supplying customers worldwide across construction, manufacturing, engineering, and transport sectors, the company relies on highly reliable water infrastructure to support its energy-intensive operations, particularly its cooling systems.
Located in Al-Sokhna, near Suez, Ezz Steel’s rolling mills and flat steel plants needed to transition their cooling water supply from freshwater sourced from the Nile River to desalinated seawater. However, the desalinated water presented new operational challenges due to higher chloride and total dissolved solids (TDS) levels, which could impact cooling system performance, accelerate corrosion risks, and increase chemical treatment requirements.
To support this critical transition while ensuring uninterrupted production, Veolia rapidly deployed seven brackish water reverse osmosis mobile water treatment units to further purify the desalinated seawater. The project was implemented in two phases, delivering an initial capacity of 8,000 m³/day before doubling the treatment capacity to 16,000 m³/day within only two months. This rapid deployment enabled Ezz Steel to switch water sources without any disruption to its operations.
The solution delivered significant operational and sustainability benefits. By producing high-quality treated water with reduced chloride and TDS levels, the mobile reverse osmosis units secured 100% of Ezz Steel’s cooling water requirements while enabling the company to reduce freshwater consumption from the Nile by 75%. The improved water quality also reduced the need for chemical treatment in the cooling process, lowering overall chemical consumption by approximately 75%. By minimizing contaminants entering the system, the solution reduced the demand for chemicals typically used for corrosion control, scaling prevention, and maintaining water chemistry balance, helping improve equipment protection and operational efficiency.
Through the use of mobile water technologies, Ezz Steel successfully completed this strategic water transition without capital investment in permanent infrastructure while maintaining continuous production under a 24-month multi-year service contract with a renewal for an additional 5 years.
Another example comes from a major mining facility in Eastern Saudi Arabia, where reduced efficiency in the site’s existing thermal desalination units, combined with increasing process water demand, threatened operational continuity. To address this challenge, Veolia rapidly deployed a temporary desalination solution with an initial treatment capacity of 4,800 m³/day, ensuring a reliable supply of process water without disrupting mining activities.
Delivered within just two months, the project included the full scope of supply, from storage tanks, chemical dosing skids, and diesel generators to all required electromechanical equipment and system integration. The solution combined six multimedia filters to reduce suspended solids and maintain optimal feedwater quality, eight seawater reverse osmosis units and two brackish water reverse osmosis units to produce high-quality water for industrial use, as well as dedicated pumping and Clean-in-Place systems. Supported by Veolia’s 24/7 operational teams, the deployment enabled the customer to quickly restore treatment capacity and maintain uninterrupted production.