Australian waste treatment specialist Virotec International has chosen water industry veteran John Catling as its new chief executive. The present incumbent, Brian Sheeran, is to become the group’s executive chairman.

Catling has a track record in strategy development and business building, having worked with Thames Water for approximately ten years, in the executive team and as a head of strategic planning. He is also executive chairman of Water Innovate, a company established to exploit technologies developed for the water and wastewater industries.

AIM-listed Virotec, which raised £9.3 million at 30p in July and expects to report a maiden profit for the year to June 2005, is currently engaged in a $1 million test of its Bauxsol water-treatment systems as part of Pennsylvania State’s Interstate 99 project, where an ‘acid runoff’ threatens local water supplies. Worryingly, state scientists say they have come up with a cheaper and more effective way of neutralizing the acidic waters. The results of this trial are due on Thanksgiving, 24 November, and a lot may hinge on them. A recent six-month trial has successfully been concluded with the UK's Water Research Council, however.

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