Partner Article

Joint venture with the boys from Brazil

A fast-growing precision engineering company from Gateshead has announced a joint venture with a South American partner.

The deal with Brastec Ltda. will allow Express Engineering to take advantage of business opportunities in one of the world’s most active oil and gas extraction markets.

With two of the three largest sub-sea reserves discovered in recent years off the Brazilian coast, around half the global drilling and underwater equipment manufacturing capacity is expected to be focused on the region.

The partnership, signed this week, creates Pertrotec Components Ltda, which will begin operations in the first quarter of next year (2010). The premises, a 1,000 square metre extension to Brastec’s existing Sao Paulo plant, is already in place and over £1 million worth of machinery has been ordered.

Express Engineering has just completed the first phase of a £3.2 million expansion at its Tyneside headquarters. This investment was designed to increase capacity by up to 50% as it seeks to win new business in the aerospace, defence and oil and gas sectors.

Nigel Davison, Express Engineering Managing Director, said: “We have been looking to establish a specialist manufacturing capacity in Brazil for some time but the challenges posed by language, culture and distance are considerable. This arrangement with Brastec offers the perfect opportunity to overcome all these obstacles.

“The slightly different operational profiles of our companies mean we can both add to the other’s offer while the size and similarity of the way the companies work suggests they will fit well together.”

Fabio Romano, Director from Brastec, added: “This is a great opportunity to strengthen both firms’ positions in the Brazilian oil and gas market, creating specialised jobs.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .