AFP's manufacturing success featured in the West Australian

AFP’s manufacturing success featured in the West Australian

Custom Solutions, Hydraulic Equipment, Oil and Gas / By

WA engineering firm AFP was featured in the West Australian newspaper for their success in the manufacture of custom Oil & Gas equipment.

AFP proves that local design and manufacture still remains competitive following the award of two chemical injection packages from a Kuala Lumpur-based firm.

The story launches Australian Engineering Week which runs from 3rd – 9th August, 2015.

A WA engineering firm has bucked a trend that has seen the State's manufacturing sector dwindle, as contractors increasingly turn to cheaper competitors in Asia. While many WA engineering firms have folded with the growing shift of manufacturing and fabrication contracts to Asia, Aussie Fluid Power has done the reverse, by recently expanding its business with a breakthrough into the Asian market. It has a $1 million contract package with a Kuala Lumpur-based firm for its two locally designed and manufactured chemical injection skids, which it is making at its 16,000sqm facility at North Coogee. The skids are destined for an FPSO in the North Sea that has a 25-year design life. AFP director Anthony Wales said WA engineering firms were comparable to their competitors on price, despite much higher labour costs, and he believed there was further potential for other local businesses to export high-end products. Mr Wales said appetite for local design and manufacture dropped away during the mining boom because there were plenty of lucrative and less risky contracts on offer. AFP sales manager Joel Woolerson said the company was able to exploit its proximity to Asia when it bid for the contract, given most of the FPSO is being assembled in Batam, Indonesia. Mr Woolerson said the final design of the injection skids was not complex, but the stringent design standards had made it a complicated process.
AFP featured article for Australian Engineering Week 2015, West Business, Western Australian Newspaper