Specialist Services chief executive officer Ian Rogers discusses how the company has continued to expand its global footprint with the opening of a massive new manufacturing facility in Jebel Ali
With all the complex operations taking place on oil or gas facilities, owners and operators need to make sure that they collaborate with the right service providers to keep everything on track. Having the proper support facilities on a project allows operators to concentrate on what matters most – production.
Putting together the living quarters, technical buildings, equipment and control rooms should be complimentary to the actual production operations on board. But that does not make them any less important.
Operators need to assemble a facility smoothly and efficiently, sometimes in very harsh environments under stringent timelines, and they have to do all this without compromising quality and safety.
Enter Specialist Services, one of the GCC region’s largest suppliers of modular buildings and packaging solutions for people and equipment in the oil and gas industry. Headquartered in Dubai, the company has over a million square feet of manufacturing and support facilities in five international locations.
The company has made some big moves since we last checked in on them, namely with the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Jebel Ali. Dubbed the Centre of Excellence for Modular Building, the company’s newest and biggest manufacturing facility, also features a modular buildings hire centre allowing companies to rent units with ease.
“The last 18 months have been very, very busy. We’ve been focusing on the stuff that we’re good at, namely constructing portable cabins, lodgings and process driven testing equipment that now accounts for almost 90% of our total revenue,” says Specialist Services’ chief executive officer, Ian Rogers.
The massive 350,000 sq. ft manufacturing facility in Jebel Ali is just one of the company’s growing number of facilities. Specialist Services inaugurated its first manufacturing site in Abu Dhabi in 1982.
Two water-front manufacturing facilities in Mussafah totalling 135,000 sq. ft of fabrication capacity as well as five fully insulated workshops totalling 87,750 sq. ft, overhead cranes with a lift capacity of 40 tonnes and load-out facility of up to 5,000 tonnes, has allowed the company to manufacture a massive fleet of large offshore modules.
The company also boasts a 390,915 sq. ft fabrication yard in Al Quoz, its global engineering and manufacturing centre for the drilling, testing and production division was opened in 1997.
In addition to opening a new facility last year, the company also achieved the IECEx Certification on its Zone 1 Purged & Pressurised Building product line. The IECEx Certificate of Conformity and Quality Module Certificate schemes by the International Electrotechnical Commission were another benchmark in the company’s commitment to compliance with international codes and standards.
As a manufacturer of modular units for the oil and gas industry, it goes without saying that providing a safe working environment in a potentially explosive or hazardous atmosphere is an absolute must. By overseeing the entire manufacturing process, Specialist Services is able to ensure complete control of production.
“We build these, we build them from scratch, cut the steel, weld it all together, everything, we do all that ourselves,” says Rogers.
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For Specialist Services, it’s not just about ensuring health and safety, it’s about protecting the environment as well. The company has recently installed a new recovery system in its Jebel Ali facility which limits its effect on the environment.
“Our main recovery system doesn’t let a lot of stuff in to the atmosphere,” says Rogers. Looking back a few years, Rogers remembers the environmental impact of some operations in the Mussafah industrial park. “You would go into their car park, and you’ve got a white car, by the time you’d get back, your car would be blue,” he says.
The developments that Specialist Services have undergone over the last year and a half have naturally involved a high level of investment activity, despite a year full of concerns about global economic stability.
“Even though there have been some concerns about demand – you know people saying that China is slowing – there’s still a huge demand for oil,” he says. “We think that the investment taps remain on at around $60 a barrel.
We see dips in our business when the oil prices are below $60 for 3-6 or more months at a time, it’s a reasonable benchmark. That being said, I don’t see the outlook changing.”
Rogers is looking forward to a busy year with expectations for 2013 remaining high. “I think we’ll have a very good 2013 with the way we’re positioned.
Yes there’s a lot of competition out there but we’ve got a very good product, very competitive price, we’ve picked up orders recently from Singapore, we’re manufacturing in the UAE and shipping to Singapore, in terms of quality, lead time and price, we can beat the Asian suppliers, and that’s very encouraging,” he says.
As long as the oil field service providers like Weatherford, Schlumberger and Halliburton are busy, then Rogers expects that he’ll be busy as well. “We’re not an operator, but we do design, engineer, manufacture and sell to operators and they’re the ones that get the equipment onto these projects.”
Specialist Services could see even more action in 2013, “We don’t deal directly with Saudi Aramco, because they don’t buy our type of equipment. Instead they’ll contact a service provider who uses our equipment to provide their services,” he reveals.
“Having said that, we’re talking to one of the groups here that is in Saudi Arabia and we expect to sign a joint venture agreement within the next three months, at which point we’ll have this type of equipment on the ground in Saudi ready to market,” he says.
It’s certainly been a long road for Specialist Services, and a few key acquisitions have helped propel them on the way. About a year ago, the company bought OIL.ME in order to develop its key-side manufacturing capabilities.
It also acquired LABTEC at around the same time, “LABTEC is a 32 year old company in Aberdeen which does exactly what we do in the Middle East but it’s a 10th of the size, and that’s our strategic footprint in the North Sea, European and West Africa sector. But we’re keeping the LANTEC name because people recognise its name and its quality,” he explained.
In order to boost its global footprint even further, the company has also invested into Singapore, home to its Business Development Office for the Asia Pacific region. It’s a plan that seems to be working. When asked about Specialist Services’ growth strategy, Rogers simply replies: “If you’re not in Aberdeen, if you’re not in Abu Dhabi, and you’re not in Singapore, then where are you?”
