A BUSY QUARTER FOR ROTORK CONTROLS
Rotork Controls LLC has had a busy first-quarter in 2008
with two major acquisitions and a name change for its Jordan Valve division.
In February, Rotork acquired Remote Controls Sweden
AB (RCS), a designer and manufacturer of valve actuators
based in Falun, Sweden.
Peter France, Group Chief Operating Officer of Rotork,
said, “RCS will sit within Rotork’s expanding Fluid Power
division and provide it with a range of additional complementary products, for both existing and new international
customers, which will be sold through Rotork’s worldwide
network of sales offices.”
In addition, Rotork recently purchased from Drallim
Industries Limited its Drallim SVM (Smart Valve Monitoring) partial stroke valve testing product. The SVM system is
used throughout the world to assist in the testing of hydrauli-
cally and pneumatically actuated block valves on duties
including ESD (Emergency Shutdown), BDV (Blow Down),
HIPPS (High Integrity Pressure Protection) and SSIV (Sub
Sea Isolation).
The technology, which Rotork has sold through its Fluid
Systems Division for a number of years, has been proven
beneficial to the partial closure testing of valves in locations
as disparate as Sakhalin Island and Saudi Arabia.
Finally, the company has renamed Jordan Controls,
Rotork Process Controls (RPC). RPC will be an independent
group within the Controls division encompassing ex-Jordan
products as well as CVA.
“This new venture allows us to leverage the best from all
of our operations,” said newly appointed Managing Director
Derek Olson. “In transitioning from Jordan Controls to
Rotork Process Controls we will grow the company in a
world-wide setting.”
MARKET FOCUS: Petroleum Refining
Planned Turnarounds to Jump in Coming Years
Although the number of planned unit maintenance
shutdowns in the North American Petroleum Refining
Industry has been decreasing in recent years, that’s
expected to change with significant increases beyond
2008, according to research conducted by Industrial Info
Resources ( www.industrialinfo.com), based in Sugar
Land, TX. At the end of 2006, the research firm was
tracking 257 units that had plans to be taken offline for
maintenance, repair and overhaul. But for 2008 and
beyond, Industrial Info reports a total of 1,282 planned
turnarounds. Refineries
across the continent are
increasing refining
capacity and improving
unit efficiencies by
planning a large number
of unit additions,
expansions and upgrades.
During the past year,
Industrial Info has
reported 622 Petroleum
Refining projects with a
total investment value
(TIV) of about $64.6
billion.
What with labor
constraints and declining profit margins, the industry had
been seeing a downward trend in turnarounds. In fact,
notes Industrial Info, some maintenance projects were
being delayed or rescheduled because of labor shortages.
Most of the upcoming maintenance work at refineries
will focus on: crude, vacuum distillation, sulfur recovery
units, reformers, HF alkylation, SF alkylation, fluid
catalytic cracker units and delayed cokers. These projects
have construction kickoff dates ranging through the first
quarter of 2013.
