V-LINE Chief at Desalination World Congress in Dubai
Dubai, 11/12/2009
2009 IDA World Congress, the premier event for the desalination industry, was held in Dubai at the Atlantis – The Palm Jumeirah, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The 5-day gathering ended November 12.
Based on the theme “Desalination for a Better World” the technical program offered 251 presentations and the concurrent exhibition showcased the latest equipment and technology solutions from 70 companies, from more than 21 countries. Delegates were government officials, financiers, corporate executives and scientific and engineering professionals active in the desalination and water reuse industry.
V-LINE CEO, Detlev Daues, was a delegate for the eighth time at the bi-annual Congress, starting with the Congress in Washington DC in 1991. Our company’s role in desalination is managing cross-border supply of plant spare parts, a procurement service. “We have for over 25 years been providing parts from Europe, USA and Japan to SWCC in Saudi Arabia and government and private water plant owners in most other Gulf State countries” he said. “So these Congresses are very important to our planning process.”
At the opening session, the keynoter David Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, cited the need to continue pushing technological advances in desalination and water reuse for a sustainable future and Lisa Henthorne, President of IDA, expanded on this year’s theme stating that “desalination and water reuse offer growing populations abundant fresh water through which health can be maintained, economies can prosper, standards of living can be enhanced and water can be recycled repeatedly, minimizing our environmental footprint on our planet.
Other opening session speakers were HE Dr. Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad, UAE Minister of Environment and Water; HE Abdullah Al Hussayen, Saudi Arabia Minister of Water and Electricity; HE Eng Fahmi Al Jowder, Bahrain's Minister of Electricity and Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore's Minister of Water and Environment.
Minister Al Hussayen’s speech powerfully and graphically reinforced the case he made at the IDA Congress in Singapore. In order to achieve an affordable path to overcoming the widespread global water scarcity that is increasing with planetary population growth and at the same time meet environmental impact constraints,
there is a necessity for coupling better water demand management with new desalination capacity .
Later, at a special briefing, Global Water Intelligence released the annual GWI / IDA Worldwide Desalting Plant Inventory showing global capacity surging by 6.6 million cubic meters a day from last year, with 700 new plants commissioned. The increase was the largest amount of desalination capacity brought on line in a single year, bringing the global total number of plants to14,451 and total capacity to 59.9 million m3/day.
At another session IDA announced formation of a taskforce to explore environmental effects of desalination on the Arabian Gulf, where this year 4.6 million m³/d of seawater desalination capacity has been added and capacity demand is forecast to grow dramatically, and to recommend strategies to mitigate potential impact.
Mr. Daues said, “the highlights of the Congress to me were the high growth and new capacity demand trend for desalination here in the Gulf and dawning concerns over related environmental issues at a time of stress
for global finance. We’ll be re-reading Minister Al Hussayen’s speech which suggested a solutions approach in a comprehensive way” he said.
*to see speech in entirety click keynote speech link above.
About V-LINE
The V-LINE group of companies was founded in 1979 and has its group headquarters in Sehnde near Hanover, Germany. It is one of the most important global providers of original spare parts direct from the manufacturers to industrial plants, working with more than 20,000 suppliers. The use of original parts guarantees optimal handling and the longest possible equipment service life. An e-procurement-solution V-Ware™ ensures considerably less transaction and procurement cost and guaranteed transit times and regular collective dispatches keep inventory to a minimum. In addition to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, other operations are in Japan, China, Mexico, Brazil and the USA. For additional information, please visit www.v-line.com or telephone—Saudi Arabia: +966 (3) 3407940, EMEA: +49 (5138) 7008-0, USA: +1-732-919-0190, Japan: +81 (66) 675 3001, Brazil: +55 (11) 66712958, China: +86 (10) 84920049, Mexico: +52 (2222) 536396.
