Member Article

Oil and Gas boost fuels KimberMills International’s growth

The resurgence of the oil and gas market is helping a West Midlands manufacturer secure one of the best years in its history.

KimberMills International, which offers high quality forgings and machined parts across two sites in Cradley Heath and Coventry, has posted a 15% increase in sales after securing new contracts to supply fluid handling, pipeline, valve and pump components.

The recent successes make it the company’s most popular sector and it is looking to build on this even further by becoming a member of NOF Energy, a business development organisation dedicated to helping firms win new contracts in the energy industry.

Bosses at the firm believe the decision could pave the way for over £1m of additional orders, with a number of factory visits already planned for potential clients to visit.

Hamish Campbell, Sales Manager at KimberMills International, commented: “The last twelve months have seen a rise in price per barrel and this is driving a number of new projects in the oil and gas sector.

“We are certainly benefitting from this, with a lot of our core customers growing their export markets and turning to us for support in meeting increases in volume and involvement in the design and manufacture of new components.”

He continued: “The challenge for us now is to get into markets that we haven’t previously been in and that is why we’ve joined NOF Energy. It has an amazing wealth of contacts and works with members to secure opportunities in power, downstream/upstream oil and gas and the rapidly growing offshore wind arena.

“Once we have the contacts and the initial enquiries, our speed of response and front-end engineering solutions speak for themselves, ensuring we can deliver on budget and to the highest possible quality.”

Established in 1919, KimberMills International offers high quality forgings and machined parts in steel, stainless steel, carbon, aluminium and super duplex.

The company currently exports 25% of its annual turnover to customers in Canada, Dubai, Europe, Malaysia and the United States.

It has recently invested £1m into a state-of-the-art forge in Cradley Heath that will speed up lead times and increase capacity, whilst it is also exploring a number of potential projects to incorporate more automation into the process.

Larry Joyce, Chairman of KimberMills International, concluded: “All the talk about next year is focused on Brexit and uncertainty. Whilst we are mindful of this, we prefer to look at the opportunities currently emerging and there’s lots of enquiries we are currently quoting that could be reshored to the UK.”

KimberMills International is part of the Manufacturing Assembly Network, an eight-strong group of sub-contract manufacturers and an engineering design agency who work together to win orders and share best practice and resource.

The collective, which enjoys more than £75m sales and employs over 800 people, can offer every engineering discipline imaginable, including automation and control systems, casting, fabrication, forging, plastic injection moulding, PCB development, precision machining and high volume pressings.

Its membership also includes Alucast, Barkley Plastics, Brandauer, C-MAC SMT, Grove Design, Mec Com, Muller Holdings and PP Control & Automation.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .