Siemens AG, a Germany-headquartered global electronics and engineering company with worldwide sales of more than $80 billion, has completed its acquisition of the US Filter Corp. from the French parent, Veolia Environmental. The $993 million deal positions Siemens as a market leader in the North American water and wastewater treatment business.

US Filter is engaged in manufacturing, distribution and engineering services. It has 5,800 employees and annual revenues of $1.2 billion. It will now become a part of the Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) in the form of a newly created “Water Technologies” division. Headquarters of the company will be in Warrendale, PA.

Siemens said the acquisition will have an immediate impact on company offerings to the mining industry, especially in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, where the Siemens partnership with Bucyrus International and US Filter is benefiting the mining of oil sands.

Oil from the tar sands, used primarily for diesel fuel and feedstock for other petroleum-based products, is first gathered in traditional, open pit mining operations and then extracted from the sand using warm water. At Suncor Energy Inc.'s facility, US Filter became the first equipment supplier to provide an entire water treatment plant for a steam-assisted gravity drainage operation to extract bitumen from oil sands.

Commissioned in February 2004, the system injects steam to heat the oil and lower the viscosity of the bitumen for easy extraction. The waste water is retreated with US Filter's system and then recycled back into the steam generator. When fully operational in 2005, the plant is projected to produce 35,000 barrels of bitumen per day, and have the ability to recycle large quantities of water, significantly reducing the waste stream.