Crystal clear, healthy drinking water is a matter of course in our degrees of latitude. This is not the case in countries mainly consisting of deserts and steppe regions, e.g. for example Iraq. In this part of the world, where the valuable liquid is more precious than oil, the Burbach company, specialised in water treatment from the Untersberg community Grödig, succeeded in being awarded the "contract of the century" – according to its own wording.
The contract includes the construction of 100 water treatment plants to transform the distasteful slop of the Tigris into quality drinking water. More than three million Iraqis shall profit from the intelligent water treatment technology made in Austria. On the one hand this is possible because the plants are mounted in containers and are therefore site-independent, on the other hand by the smart technology: the valuable liquid "develops" through the use of special filter systems, sedimentation tanks and final chlorination for disinfection.
The small Austrian company had to compete against 150 domestic and large foreign companies for being awarded the contract. "In addition to the required know-how it was also the price that was decisive," said Thomas Strang who manages the Burbach business together with his father Hans Walter Strang. Domestic enterprises generally have a hard time in the Arab countries.
"Austria has quite a struggle to hold its own against British, French and American companies that have been successfully lobbying in these regions already for decades," describes Strang Junior the difficult economic conditions.
Finally, however, the diplomatic skills of the Austrians and their ability to adapt to Middle-East mentality were successful. The know-how for water treatment comes from the "think-tank Burbach", as well as several important hardware components like pumps and valves. The sophisticated measuring and automatic control technology, however, is bought by the enterprise in Grödig from competent suppliers.
It all began thirty years ago
When a big company group solicits such a big contract via one of its numerous foreign addresses, this is considered "business as usual". But if a company in Salzburg with a staff of 16 secures such orders, this is not a matter of pure chance! The upswing of the Burbach company started over 30 years ago as the Austrian location of a German company. Hans Walter Strang, who was proxy at Burbach at that time and is now managing partner, started with the sale of fittings and parallel side valves for pipelines.
About 15 years ago the Strang family finally took over the Burbach company completely. The only thing it shares today with the former mother company – which has been sold to the Armaturen AG in the meantime – is only the name. Burbach developed quickly into a competent supplier of pumping stations for communal purification plants. In Austria it is responsible for the large purification plant at Siggerwiesen and the pumping system of Krems (protecting the city from Danube flooding).
A further field of action over the years has proved to be the planning and production of plants for industrial enterprises, e.g. for the feeding of lacquers or wastewater with a considerable share of solids. The step abroad was not done directly by Burbach, but via Austrian groups. For years the company has supplied enterprises like the VA Tech and Aqua Engineering. "We have never striven to solicit contracts on foreign markets directly, because we have always been able to rely on our reputation," says the senior managing director describing the development of the external business.
And finally it was this way that the latest deal with Iraq came about. Word-of-mouth recommendation opened also many other foreign doors for Burbach. In the last two years alone, seven water treatment plants were planned and built for Egypt and the company relied on the longstanding experience of Egyptian family enterprises that took over the steel construction, the mounting and overall process control of the plant. Burbach was responsible for the core of the plant, i.e. the control unit, the pumps and fittings.
Exporting is the future
The question as to the further development of the water expert company from Grödig is answered by father and son Strang optimistically: "Of course, we hope that the development will continue to move up the Burbach intensity scale." And the future certainly lies in the exporting business.
In a country like Austria the water treatment boom is largely over and water treatment does not have to be pursued to such an extent as, for example, in a desert country. A potential future market for Burbach is certainly China with its population of 1.3 billion. In this part of the world, too, the Austrian water expert Burbach can already produce important projects. (Source: aqua press Int. 1/2001)
Dr. Alexander Tempelmayr
Information & Contact:
Erwin Burbach GmbH
Maschinenfabrik
Gartenauer Straße 2, A–5082 Grödig
Tel. +43 62 46 72 965
Fax: +43 62 46 72 965-4
