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Middlesbrough manufacturer welcomes £250k Chinese opportunity

Middlesbrough manufacturer ESCS believes it could be in line for a 50% turnover boost after attracting increasing interest from China.

The fire protection firm, which has a current turnover of £500k, sent its self-designed ES300 TL system for demonstrations with a major oil and gas company based in the Chinese city of Qingdao.

Now, talks are underway regarding the potential for the Chinese firm to order 10 of the machines in a deal worth £250k.

Manufacturers of specialist corrosion control and spray application equipment, ESCS already boasts major oil and gas operators in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Azerbaijan among its customers but managing director Shaun McDonald believes the ES300 TL could revolutionise the fire protection industry.

The specialist machines spray thick coatings of intumescent epoxy materials to protect steel structures from the threat of fire on oil and gas refineries, petrochemical plants, fabrication yards and oil rigs.

From its new premises on South Tees Freight Park, ESCS already manufactures and exports the ES430, a larger applicator of passive fire protection, but produced the smaller, faster version on request from its Chinese customer.

Devised by McDonald himself, ESCS invested £27k into the research, design and planning of the machine, with manufacturing support from Middlesbrough firms, Teesside Precision Engineering and Donoghue Engineering.

Following initial trials at Azko Nobel in Felling, McDonald now believes the new machine will prove a huge hit across the industry.

He said: “I knew it would do a job, as it will reduce the set-up time and application process on smaller jobs by at least two thirds, but it far surpassed even my own high expectations during the testing.

“This is a real innovation because it will save so much time. There is nothing like this on the market so I think these machines will fly off the shelf once people out there know about it.

“We’re now talking about a potential export order for 10 machines worth £250k with a single customer, but China is a big potential growth area for us.”

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