A COMPANY which safety checks potentially explosive equipment such as oil rigs and distilleries is investing £2m in an expansion which it expects to grow its revenues from £3.5m to £15m in three years.
Cramlington-based Cenelec has signed a deal with US oilfield services giant Weatherford Drilling International to check its 200 land drills every year as they go from contract to contract around the world.
It raised £2m to help it expand to take on the deal including the purchase of the latest equipment which can check over a rig and send back the results to Weatherford the next day so it can show the oil company leasing the rig that it is safe and ready to use on a new site.
This saves Weatherford, or any similar business, tens of thousands of pounds it may otherwise have lost in downtime as it moves the rigs from one contractor to another.
Cenelec executive director Jonathan Gibson said: “We have made the investment to get us ready for this contract and we are already winning other business around the world as our capability has grown.”
The 30-year-old business launched by his father Alan Gibson has seen its revenues grow steadily since new regulations were launched in 2006 from £1.8m in 2009 to £2.6m last year and expects £3.5m this year.
But it expects strong growth to £10m next year and £15m by 2015 as more businesses take advantage of Cenelec’s ability, increasingly as new regulations demand drill rigs are checked annually and other sites like chemical plants every three years.
New contracts with companies including Cairo-based Sakson Egypt are already coming in and the firm is recruiting 15 inspectors, taking its staff up to 65, and it is to train up its first apprentices.
Most of the cash for the working capital needed to expand came from shareholders including Alan and Jonathan Gibson and bank facilities. But it also raised £275,000 from regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers.
Jane Siddle, investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, adds: “CSI’s precise application of specialist knowledge, allied to its judicious use of new technologies has seen the business thrive despite the prevailing economic climate, and it is now well set to achieve even more in the future.”
