Desalination as well as the complete water and waste water industry is the global growth market of the 21st century, says Detlev Daues, CEO of V-Line Europe Export GmbH, in a message on the occasion of the Jeddah Water and Power Forum.

V-Line has provided procurement services to large desalination plants in Saudi Arabia for over 25 years. Its focus has been on MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) parts and supplies to support foreign-made plant and equipment.
Important customers have been Saline Water Conversion Cooperation (SWCC) power and desalination plants and Sceco utilities. “These units are part of public restructuring, so participation at the Jeddah Water and Power Forum was essential for us to in order to stay current with ongoing changes and to better serve companies,” said Daues. SWCC operates 22 desalination plants in Saudi Arabia.
In his comments, Turgay Temur, head of V-Line Logistics, said: “We are also interested in new opportunities arising out of the privatisation programmes, for example the increased emphasis on wastewater treatment, and have been developing a services concept to address the Saudi water industry’s plant MRO procurement needs that will be broader than the desalination sectors we are now serving.
 “This concept will also benefit local suppliers to Saudi plants in addition to our cross-border supplier partners.”
Commenting on V-Line’s participation at the 2005 Jeddah Water and Power Forum, Daues said it was promoted as a platform for policy-makers, investors and contractors to meet together and share knowledge and experiences towards achieving the goals of the kingdom’s water and electricity policies and privatisation initiatives. “For three days we were able to discuss our new concepts with prospective users and partners and we were encouraged by officials to propose on a pilot project to test technical and operational aspects of the new service at a single location” he said.
V-Line started business in 1979 with deliveries to desalination plants and became known to the Arab countries. This business sector still represents 20 per cent of its annual turnover.
V-Line Europe has more than 90 employees worldwide, 60 working at the head office in Sehnde, Germany. The rest are at a subsidiary in the US and customer support branches in Mexico, Brazil and China.
Besides Daues and Temur, the V-Line management team includes Klaus Menzel, general manager; Birgit Jaklin, financial manager, and Shahzad Haider marketing manager.