Tell us more about SPX Flow.
Specialising in providing products and services for the power and energy industries, SPX Flow is a US corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
We are a global supplier of highly specialised, engineered products and services, with operations in more than 35 countries and sales in over 150 countries. Within the Middle East, we have offices in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, currently employing around 150 people.
We offer a wide range of process equipment for applications in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. Our extensive portfolio includes positive displacement pumps, centrifugal pumps, heat exchangers, filtration equipment, dehydration equipment, pig launching systems, valves, mixers, etc.
What products do you offer to the downstream sector?
In the refining and petrochemical industry, we have different technologies designed to optimise processes. These include filtration equipment for protection of rotating equipment and upstream protection of catalyst beds; complete, high accuracy chemical dosing systems; efficient heat exchangers which are widely used across refining and petrochemical applications; fluid pumping solutions, tank mixers for chemical and hydrocarbon mixing, compressed air dryers for instrument air applications and more.
What are some of the current trends you are seeing in the sector?
How the crude oil prices impact the petrochemical industry depends on various factors such as – whether the primary feedstock is gas based (ethane) or crude oil based (naphtha). Also, obviously, it is impacted by the global demand of petrochemicals for production of plastics, which in turn is a function of global economic activity. How the global oil price situation impacts the margins within the petrochemical sector is a complex question. With crude oil being a raw material for petrochemical manufacturers, the falling oil prices will likely bode well for the petrochemical manufacturers’ profit margins.
With lower raw material cost and robust demand, what more could they ask for? On the flip side, due to competitive pressures, the declining prices may marginally drag down petrochemical prices as well. Overall, the impact on the downstream petrochemical industry is likely to be positive if the prices continue to dip in the long term.
Talking about the Middle East, we would see the Sadara plant in Saudi come on stream in 2016, which is Saudi’s first project based on naphtha as feedstock. Paradoxically, Saudi Arabia has yet not fully developed its petrochemical industry and until recently relied heavily on gas. In addition, Oman would see the building of the Liwa Plastics complex, taking advantage of the growing global demand for plastics.
How has business been for SPX in the last 12 months?
Business in the Middle East has been good for us, despite the challenges in the oil economy. Successes include projects in Algeria, Oman and Kuwait, as well as various pipeline projects in Saudi for Saudi Aramco. Our results in Kuwait, Oman and Saudi this year were particularly strong and we are very pleased with the outcome.
Buoyed by our recent success in the Middle East, and with the objective of providing better support to our customers, SPX FLOW are also planning to invest in new Service Centres in the region one in Saudi and another one in Abu Dhabi.
