O'ahu's first bottler of desalinated deep-sea drinking water plans to start production within two months following the recent purchase of a Kapolei factory.

Deep Ocean Enterprises plans to bottle the water, which is pumped from 2,000 feet below the ocean surface, in a Kapolei bottling factory that was purchased from Hawaiian Springs LLC for an undisclosed sum earlier this month.

Deep Ocean Enterprises and at least a half-dozen other companies are looking to profit off water harvested from the depths off Hawai'i. The deep-sea water has become a hit in Japan where it is marketed as a pure, nutrient-rich drink. Water harvested from the depths is older and purer than surface water, according to proponents.

"This is the purest water," said Deep Ocean's President Richard Paige. "It's never seen the light of day. It's not contaminated."

Deep Ocean plans to invest $1 million and up to two months converting its recently acquired bottling factory from packaging purified natural water to bottling 10,000 to 15,000 gallons of desalinated deep-sea water a day.

Exports of desalinated seawater reached $37.4 million last year and, for the second year in a row, the water was Hawai'i's leading locally produced export.

Most of the seawater bottlers in the state operate at the Big Island's Natural Energy Lab park, where a pipeline draws nutrient-rich seawater from off the Kona Coast. The facility hosts four operators, including industry-leader Koyo USA Corp., which can produce 1 million bottles of water a day. Two other companies, Savers Holdings Ltd. and Moana Water Co., have leased property at the facility.

Just how long the boom in water exports will last remains to be seen. This year growth in exports of the water has slowed dramatically. Through April, Hawai'i exported $11.5 million in natural, unsweetened water, primarily to Japan. That's up just 7 percent from the year-ago period and is well below the triple-digit growth experienced in 2006. Exports more than doubled in 2006 from the year before.

Hawai'i deep-sea water companies maintain that the market potential for their product is largely untapped. Nearly all of Hawai'i's deep-sea drinking water is exported to Japan, though a growing number of companies are trying to break into the U.S. retail market.

Jeff Smith, chief operating officer for Kona bottler Deep Seawater International Inc., said the company's "Kona Deep" is available for sale in most states.

Deep Ocean Enterprises plans to sell its water as "Hawai'i Deep Bleu." It will join Koyo International's "Mahalo" and Deep Seawater International's "Kona Deep," both of which are manufactured in Kailua, Kona, at the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority, which has served as the hub for the burgeoning in industry.

However, strong demand for the water, which sells for around $4 a liter, is behind the industry's expansion into O'ahu. The first company to jump into the market was DSH International Inc., which began pumping water in April from a ship parked about 4 miles west of Ko Olina. DSH, which operates as Deep Ocean Hawaii, someday could be joined by Ko Olina Resort & Marina, which hopes to tap seawater deep below the West O'ahu resort as a source for deep-sea water for sale to consumers.

Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.