Emirates success for Walsall

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Aug 20, 2002

Five-day turnaround and premium quality workmanship in the UK have won international business from Bechtel for Walsall after a French contractor failed to deliver.

Five-day turnaround and premium quality workmanship in the UK have won international business from Bechtel for Walsall after a French contractor failed to deliver.

West Midlands-based Walsall, the leading UK manufacturer and supplier of electrical equipment for hazardous environments, is supplying US contracting giant Bechtel with ATEX-approved custom made lighting junction boxes for use in the United Arab Emirates.

Working with agent EMEESCO (Emirates Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Supplies Co), Walsall is supplying the junction boxes to Bechtel in a two-phase operation.

Robert Whorrod, managing director of Walsall, comments, "With moulding capacity in-house we have control over our production lead times and processes, and can deliver on time in fact, owing to the unusual situation in this instance, we turned around the first phase of this project in just five days".

Bechtel is using the Walsall junction boxes in its work building and maintaining onshore gas facilities to develop the United Arab Emirates' largest offshore gas reservoir, located under Umm Shaif and Abu Bukhoosh oil fields.

The United Arab Emirates' natural gas reserves are the world's fourth largest after Russia, Iran and Qatar.

Rob Whorrod adds, "Bechtel's original French supplier was producing an inferior quality product with long lead times.

At Walsall, we pride ourselves on our low failure rate, and aim to continually deliver junction boxes that are consistently solid, reliable, heavy-duty products.

Our in-house manufacturing capacity enables us to rigidly enforce quality control and minimise manufacturing lead times.

We specialise in meeting customer orders with fast turnaround and high quality, yet at prices which compete favourably with imported supplies - all factors which have won over customers and contributed to our success".