Armultra

FIRST CHOICE

IN FABRICATION & CONSTRUCTION SERVICES THE

Armultra Ltd has been providing engineering solutions for the offshore industry since 1985. The company is highly adaptable; continuing to serve the oil and gas industry while also responding to the needs of the emerging energy transition sector. Director Tom Beales explained more to Hannah Barnett

IThas been a successful, if sometimes challenging, year at Armultra.

The company, along with much of the industry, has been impacted by the fluctuating price of oil and gas. This i s alongside some renewable projects being put on hold, though others are progressing quickly, with the push to net zero.

“It’s been an up and down year, from a work point of view,” reflected Tom Beales, Director. “But overall, with how the last few years have been, up and down is the new normal. So, we’ve adapted and overcome the challenges and we’re out the other side. We’ve got a full order book for the next year and are trying to take on more people in all areas to cope with demand. I think that this proves more than anything how well we’ve coped with conditions out of our control. As a team, we’ve all stuck together and got through it, and now we’re seeing the benefits.”

Armultra’s facility in Great Yarmouth occupies 160,000 square feet with dedicated carbon steel and exotic metal workshops,

including goods inwards and pressure testing areas. The company also has a 12-metre tower for rope access, working at height and GWO training. This is supported by one of the largest archives of Welding Procedure Qualification Records in the UK. The company employs around 150 staff in its workshops, offshore and onsite and is projecting a turnover of £14 million for the 2024 financial year. “It’s looking good, though of course we never know what’s around the corner,” said Mr Beales. “But, as a business, we can only deal with what’s in front of us.”

The importance of people

One of Armultra’s clear strengths is its multi-skilled workforce, who are adept at moving between the renewables sector and projects for oil and gas companies.

The company is keen to encourage new blood into the industry. It currently has 10 apprentices and is training them in different levels of fabrication engineering, to equip the workforce of the future with

ARMULTRA

the skills necessary to facilitate the energy transitio n.

“We’ve also got six individuals in an internal improver programme,” Mr Beales added. “We’re trying to develop and bring in all age groups; people that want to change career paths and come into engineering and fabrication, as well as school and college leavers.”

Armultra is looking to contribute to the energy transition by exploring the potential

of solutions such as carbon capture and hydrogen. The company is a member of the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR), where Mr Beales is also a Director.

“EEEGR is heavily involved in discussions with various hydrogen and carbon capture teams,” Mr Beales explained. “From a fabrication point of view, at Armultra we are one of the last pieces of the puzzle and most of these projects are in the early stages of development, so we haven’t received any orders yet, but we’ve been in discussions and helping with the upfront work of such projects.”

The company now has projects in the pipeline with a variety of different sectors, including renewables, oil and gas, nuclear, and petrochemical.

In the last year, the company has also been going through a transition of its own, with old staff retiring and new employees

hired to replace them. “That’s been a key milestone,” said Mr Beales. “We had three people retire who had been in the business for 30 odd years, so we lost a lot of experience and knowledge, but the new people have settled in well and hit the ground running.”

The complete package

One of Armultra’s flagship projects has seen the company fabricating refrigeration packages for Hinkley Point nuclear power station. The contract has been running for

two years, with another year to go, and was Armultra’s first big project in the nuclear power industry.

For the Hinckley client, Armultra builds units from the ground up at its Great Yarmouth workshop. This includes fabrication of oil separators, pressure vessels, shell and tube heat exchangers, liquid receivers, and surge drums. The base frames and support steel are also manufactured at the workshop. Once the painting and electrical work is done, the products are shipped to the client for final installation at Hinkley.

“Winning this work has been a big feather in our cap,” explained Mr Beales. “And with the potential of Sizewell, and other nuclear power plants being built around the country, it is a great opportunity for us.

“There is such a great project team here, along with our Responsible Welding Coordinator. We can do the design, the fabrication and the installation. We can obviously just do parts of that, if needed. We can offer our clients the complete package from start to finish, keeping to the quality, timeframe and price set out at the offset.”

To maintain this strong relationship with clients, Armultra relies on its supply chain, using local suppliers wherever possible to ensure successful delivery of the final product.

“We wouldn’t be here without a successful supply chain,” Mr Beales agreed. “Everyone, from local suppliers to those in the wider parts of the country, does a great job for us.

Communication with our suppliers is something that we especially pride ourselves on.

If we need something in hurry, then we can get it from speaking to the right person. But if there is a delay in a part, then we can work with the supplier to expedite it too.

It’s all about keeping those communication lines open.

“There are local companies we have used since when we started in 1985, and there are companies out there that we’ve just started using in the last year. They’re all just as important to us and critical for the strength of our supply chain.”

The future of fabrication

It comes as little surprise to learn that Armultra plans to continue the same successful path and upward trajectory. This means remaining both resilient and flexible.

“We are still on our five-year plan to keep growing the business via headcount and turnover, and we want to keep making the most of the opportunities out there,” said Mr Beales. “Working with our clients and supply chain is how we maintain our

success. We’ve been in the business close to 40 years and are a well-established, well-known, world-class fabrication engineering company. We just need to keep building on that reputation by always improving.”

For Mr Beales, on a personal level, it is the variety of work that keeps the job exciting.

“Every day is different,” he concluded. “ I enjoy working with people and getting to know how they operate. We take on a diverse range of jobs, which means I am always interacting with different people and different suppliers. I love working in this industry. It’s truly the variety and the clients that we deal with that keeps me going every day.”