Member Article

Sunderland set to benefit from Haskel growing lucrative overseas market

Haskel boosted export orders by 30 per cent in 2014 and is eyeing further overseas sales growth, bolstered by a distribution contract in the lucrative Norwegian oil and gas market.

The Sunderland site, which is part of US-owned Accudyne Industries, now exports just under 50 per cent of its products and is aiming to increase this figure to more than half during 2015.

Haskel, recognised as a world leader in high pressure products, specialises in designing and manufacturing components able to withstand pressures that are typically five to 10 times normal operating pressures - around 6,000 to 130,000 per square inch (PSI).

Its sister company BuTech. is a leading provider of high pressure piping components to the offshore and subsea oil and gas sector.

The business employs 62 people in the UK, with a 50-strong workforce at its head office, distributing high pressure pumps and valves and designing and manufacturing package solutions for various industries including defence, energy and oil and gas sectors in more than 50 countries.

The oil and gas sector now makes up 60 per cent of the European site’s work and in addition to the domestic industry (Haskel also has a sales office in Aberdeen), there were strong orders from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The largest export growth was to the African market, where orders were up by 35 per cent year on year, followed by a 30 per cent jump in exports to Russia, despite a number of international trade embargos due to the situation in Ukraine.

Mrs Caroline Farquhar was appointed as the Sunderland site manager in 2014 and is the first woman to hold the position.

She takes over as head of the Sunderland site from Steve Learney, who was promoted to global product manager for the high-pressure products product line of Accudyne’s Precision Flow Systems division.

Prior to taking the Sunderland site leadership role, Farquhar has led Haskel’s European finance function for 15 years after beginning her career with Federal Mogul (formerly Hepworth and Grandage).

Haskel is aiming to build on its successes in reducing delivery times to customers and can turnaround specific parts in 48 hours as a result of a value engineering programme. In an industry where lead times are often more important than costs, the company is working to cut times even further.

A new focus on stocking policies meant the Sunderland site was able to ship an offshore test pack 200 for an oil and gas company in the Middle East within 23 hours of receiving the order.

In addition, there will be further focus on aftermarket during 2015 as the company expands its dedicated team of service engineers who are able to maintain and repair equipment on site or at the Haskel plant for customers.

UK Site Manager and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Financial Controller, Caroline Farquhar, said: “One big contributor was taking over responsibility for a distributor in Norway from our US location.

“Our main focus now is improving lead times, particularly in our BuTech product range historically made at our location in Burbank, California.

“We started making BuTech products in Sunderland in the final quarter of 2014, and this year, we will be scheduling more parts to be made locally, improving efficiency and customer service.

“In addition our US parent company has made significant investment in new equipment to improve the lead times to customers which will be effective from the second quarter of this year.

“My promotion coincided with a change in the overall global organisational structure of the business, which means we work closely with the divisional European head office in France.

“There is a lot of growth potential in Norway where in 2015 we will benefit from the first full year impact of the new distribution deal.

“We will also benefit from the new opportunities arising from the overall company reorganisation, which is putting the focus on customers and increased sales.

“Domestically, we are building three hydrogen refuelling stations for the UK which are likely to lead to further opportunities.

“If we get the volume, the next stage will hopefully be to create new jobs. First we have to turn opportunities into orders – which we’ve done with success during 2014.”

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