Press Releases

BUSINESS NEWS
Friday, July 22, 2005
Cheaper to do water refilling

* With entry of low-cost purifier for small and medium enterprises

An Australian company manufacturing reverse osmosis systems, such as desalinators, to produce fresh drinking water, has designed a low-cost water purifier for small and medium companies that want to venture into the water refilling business.

Dickson Peter Ybañez, managing director and chairman of DP Ybañez Group of Companies Inc. (DPYGCI), said the company’s introduction of the low-cost desalinator in the country is one way of helping the government fulfill its duty of providing clean water to everyone.

He said the machine costs P470,000.

“With this cost, any entrepreneur who wants to venture into the water refilling business can do so. Aside from earning, they will be able to help bring down the cost of clean water by selling these at prices lower than the existing prices in the market,” Ybanez told Sun.Star Cebu.

The company will open a distribution office at the Cebu Business Park.

YIL has sold its reverse osmosis systems, which produce fresh drinking water from brackish and seawater sources, to countries like Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Fiji, the Middle East, Malaysia, Africa and Bangladesh, among others.
(JBN)

SUN STAR Monday, August 16, 2004
Easy to get clean, drinking water

A CEBUANO who has made it big in Australia may be able to help President Arroyo realize her promise of bringing clean water all over the country during her next six years in office.

Dickson Peter Ybañez, proprietor of Ybañez International Ltd. (YIL), last week launched in Cebu his desalination technology, which processes “real saltwater into pure water” in about one second.

This has applications for areas not easily accessible by vehicles, where Ybañez’s machines, which can be as small as 1.2 meters in length, can be carried to the site by just two people. A machine this small can process 5,000 liters of seawater a day.

Ybañez expressed particular concern about Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, where he said he had heard people were catching rainwater for use as drinking water, unmindful or perhaps ignorant of the fact that the water may contain contaminants like larvae or acid rain.

The technology created by YIL, a wholly Australian-owned company put up in the 1980s to design and manufacture water treatment systems, can process seawater, brackish water, and water from the well.

 

United Nations

Ybañez, who migrated to Australia as a child, said his machines are certified by World Health Organization and United Nations standards for producing water that is safe for drinking.

“We’re talking 0.0001 microns of purity,” he said.

His company, which is headquartered in Western Australia, counts the legendary French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau among his varied clients.

Citor Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of YIL, manufactures the desalinators for light and heavy industrial uses, the mining industry, agriculture, yachts and pleasure vessels, islands and resorts. Another subsidiary, DP Ybañez Group of Companies Inc., is the Philippine unit that will distribute the machines in the Philippines.

YIL has already supplied systems to every state in Australia and exported to countries like Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Fiji, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, India, Pakistan, and regions like Africa and the Middle East.

 

Containerized

Ybañez said for heavy users, there are containerized models of his water treatment systems, like 10-footer and 40-footer-sized models.

Since they are housed in containers, they are easy to transport.

In fact, his machines supplied potable water to the earthquake-stricken Turkey not too long ago, when it had difficulty supplying its own water with the power lines down.

Ybañez said his containerized systems have a generator built in, an air conditioner, toilet and self-sufficient lighting. The 40-footer model can process 220,000 liters of seawater a day. The requirement is less than 100 kilowatts of power.

One of those, he said, could already serve the cooking and drinking water needs of two to three Philippine barangays, or 22,000 homes, assuming each family consumes 10 liters a day.

With this in mind, Ybañez is pitching his equipment to local bottling companies as well, assuring that they will be able to recover the cost of the machine in less than a year.

 

Bottled water

And to prove his claim, he is planning to bottle his own water products in Barangay Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City. Ocean Fresh, the brand he is bottling, may be out in the market before the year ends. CTL

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THE FREEMAN
Friday, December 10, 2004
New water purifying system hits Cebu
December 10, 2004

The Citor System, the widely used water desalinator, is now available in Cebu through Ybañez International Ltd. The company specializes in the manufacture of reverse osmosis systems to produce fresh drinking water from brackish and seawater sources with emphasis on seawater desalinators for all types of vessels, yachts and islands.

The new Citor water purifying system uses the reverse osmosis procedure to extract clean water from a polluted source or eliminate harmful minerals from seawater.

How does Citor work?

Large areas of synthetic sheet membrane are wrapped in a spiral and inserted in a pressure housing — this is called a membrane module inside the desalinator machine. Water is pumped into the module of a fixed rate and pressure. A percentage of the volume passes through the membrane and is collected as fresh water. The remaining water flowing over the membrane surface, carries the excess salts and impurities to waste. This action prevents the membrane surface from fouling.

The Citor System water desalinators can produce from a range of 1,000 to 1,000,000 liters a day, depending on the machine size. All Citor water desalinators are easy to install, operate and would require minimum training, low in maintenance and service requirements.

Ybañez International Ltd. supplies package installations for power stations, boiler feed, car wash, hydroponics, bottled water plants, print shops, laboratories and chemical manufacturers as well as fresh water supply for islands and coastal areas.

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