Oil & Gas Middle East met Ralf Massmann, director of overseas network management at Phoenix Contact at Middle East Electricity in Dubai in February. Here, he reveals the special requirements the company is making to accommodate the advanced needs of the regional oil and gas industry.
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What is Phoenix Contact’s principal offering to the oil and gas industry?
Phoenix Contact is a worldwide leading manufacturer of electrical connection technology, electronic interfaces and automation technology.
Founded in 1923, the company now employs 11000 people worldwide. With a global turnover of US$1.8 billion, worldwide distribution is effected via a global sales network comprising around 47 own subsidiaries as well as 30 representatives.
Ultimately, Phoenix Contact is a leading supplier to the process industry. We offer a broad product range of industrial connection technology, Ex-i isolators, surge protection, Fieldbus Foundation interfaces and Ethernet systems to connect field devices to the control room.
Many of our products can be used in potentially explosive areas and safety-related applications.
What special considerations have to be met when dealing with oil and gas installations?
The oil and gas industry often makes special demands on the fitters of electro-technical plants and providers of electrical automation technology.
In part, special requirements, norms and standards have to be fulfilled in many applications due to the rough environment conditions, like high humidity or a potentially explosive atmosphere.
The field devices and automation technology then have to comply with special standards, IP protection classes and meet the requirements of the electrical explosion protection.
The products of Phoenix Contact fulfil internationally requested norms and standards and are mainly installed in switch cabinets and field junction boxes. In principle, Phoenix Contact products form the interfaces between the field level and the control room.
Does this become more challenging in an offshore environment?
Products for the offshore environment also have to comply with special requirements and naturally also with international norms and standards, because products of automation technology often are exposed to rough ambient conditions particularly in the offshore industry.
Depending on the application requirements, corresponding products of Phoenix Contact are exposed to a high humidity in various test labs over a longer period, for instance, or undergo vibration and shock tests to thus also guarantee functionality and quality for many years.
Have demands from the industry changed in recent years?
The question that runs like a thread through every project with the process industry is: can I operate a system with maximum efficiency with at the same time high flexibility? Which migration and modernisation concepts make plants more energy efficient and in addition enable a professional asset management? How can I increase system availability?
Phoenix Contact knows that in the overall ratio of a comprehensive process plant, like a refinery or an offshore platform, we can only contribute a small part to subjects such as energy efficiency, sustainability or system availability.
In its performance and product range, Phoenix Contact mainly concentrates on so-called interfaces for signal transmission, that is, the way between field instrumentation and the control.
But this is exactly the area in which Phoenix Contact wants to offer the user a real added value compared to the competition and score points with quality and technological advantages.
What innovations in your field have taken place in recent years?
Phoenix Contact will launch many new innovative products this year. However, for us it is not enough to simply develop a new product that can do exactly what is state-of-the art and nothing else. We want more and we want products that inspire the customer!
We also question the user: In your opinion, is what you are getting on the market already perfect? Or do you see need for improvements?
With a mature product portfolio for Ex-i applications, today we can offer probably the world’s smallest MACX product range of isolation amplifiers with better technical features than in earlier versions.
The advantage for the user is a very low power dissipation of the devices that allows placing the isolation amplifiers on the DIN rail in the switch cabinet without installation restrictions, thus making a separate ventilation in the switch cabinet superfluous.
Another, even more topical example is our new uninterruptable power supplies Quint IQ. During their development, an intelligent battery management was in the foreground to guarantee the highest possible system availability.
This device series was discussed with several renowned users already during the specification phase, among others from the process industry, to thus comply with customers’ demands.
Who are your core customers?
Our range of customers in the process industry is quite varied and consists, among others, of end users, EPCs, DCS suppliers, system integrators and panel builders.
Phoenix Contact develops, produces and sells products that are installed and used in the process industry between the field and control level as so-called interfaces.
In cooperation with the aforementioned range of customers, products and system solutions were created that have proven themselves in practice and contain considerable installation and thus cost savings, for instance.
Consistent quality, a good price-performance ratio and the international availability of products and system solutions is an important purchase criterion for our customers to use Phoenix Contact products.
What proportion of global business is represented by the Middle Eastern Market?
The Middle East market is a particularly relevant market for Phoenix Contact due to the potential for further investments which it represents.
With a presence in the region of already more than ten years, we have established our Middle East head office and subsidiary in Dubai at the beginning of 2009 as a clear sign of commitment to our customers in the region.
Our marketing, sales, technical support, and logistics operations now provide more value to our business partners from Egypt to Pakistan and from Iraq to Yemen.
With these solid steps taken over the past few years, the Middle Eastern market has contributed significantly to the successful global development of Phoenix Contact.
Do you see exciting growth opportunities in 2011?
The past year has seen remarkable growth for our Middle East operations. With further planned investments in the local infrastructure, and continuous qualification and training of our regional resources, we will continue to bring more value to our customers at the local level.
This will lead to further qualification of our products with the end users, and an even better positioning on the various oil and gas and related infrastructure projects in the region, leading to further growth in the years to come.
Phoenix Contact views all customers and markets with equal importance. In general, GCC countries have traditionally invested heavily in the Oil and Gas sector, which has been the major contributor to the GDP of these countries.
In the past few years, we have also seen a move towards diversification through investments in other civil infrastructure and utility projects which also presents Phoenix Contact with a unique opportunity for growth.
Phoenix Contact’s commitment to the Middle East region is part of a corporate strategy aimed at enhancing our global presence in the various markets in order to be even closer to our customers.
This level of proximity enables us to continue to develop innovative products that are particularly relevant to their applications.
