As some of you may be aware, the Petrochemical office in Houston is expanding again. In order to keep everyone informed on what the Petrochemical group is doing, I have prepared a brief summary of our activities.

In October 2004 the office relocated to new premises off Highway 6 in Houston. In February 2006 the office added more offices and a second conference room. In August we are adding additional offices and a bullpen. This addition of space has become necessary because of workload, project commitments and the hiring of new staff. . 

GROWTH

The Houston office has shown considerable growth over the last 3 years. This growth is reflected in revenues, profit and staff. Revenues increased by 150% in 2004, 60% in 2005 and an estimated 80% in 2006. Staff levels have increased to over 25 in 2006. The office now has 26 employees, 20 who work directly out of the office in Houston.  

PROJECTS

The Houston office is currently working 4 projects that have budgets and estimated revenues in excess of $1 million. These projects are:

• Fire Damage Assessment and Reconstruction QA
• Design Verification of Pressure Equipment
• Fire Damage Assessment, RBI and Inspection of Piping
• Pipeline explosion and incident investigation

These projects are in addition to our engineering service contracts, as well as pipeline, litigation support, RBI, failure analysis, data management, and fitness for service projects.

Current billability levels for all Houston staff is in excess of 90%.

NEW INITIATIVES

The Petrochemical office has several new initiatives. These include:

• State of the Art data/documentation scanning, storage and search/retrieval system
• Development of Corporate Safety Manual Development of data storage and hosting capability
• On-going development of RBI software, partnership with Canadian company to develop new software tools

CANADA OFFICE

In January 2006 the Petrochemical office opened an APTECH office in Edmonton, Alberta. We attended the Banff Asset Integrity conference in February, have made high level presentations to various companies as well as meeting with the provincial regulatory body, ABSA. An alliance has been signed with a software company in Calgary and together we are developing new software tools for the industry. It is estimated that the Canadian office will generate significant revenues in 2007.

SCOPE OF SERVICES

In 2004 the Houston office developed a detailed business plan to aid in the growth of the office.

Vision and mission statements we defined as well as scope of services and income targets.

Our values are:

• Client service
• Professionalism and Integrity
• Innovation and Technology

Our mission is:

• To provide unparallel engineering service to our clients
• To show continued and sustainable growth
• To provide technically advanced/cutting edge integrity management services

APTECH Petrochemical Business Unit's vision is:

To become a world leader in the provision of advanced/cutting edge asset integrity management services to all industrial sectors

The Petrochemical Group provides a direct focus on Asset Integrity Management solutions to the process industries. This is achieved by offering unparalled engineering service, using industry best practices driven by the latest technologies and innovative strategies.

The APTECH Petrochemical Group provides asset integrity management services to the following industries:

• Offshore and shipping (Qualifications)
• Pipelines (Qualifications and Link)
• Chemical and petrochemical (Qualifications)
• Refineries and gas processing
• LNG and LPG

The Petrochemical group provides asset and life management support to infrastructure, facility and equipment through conception, design, construction, commissioning, operations and de-commissioning phases of a facility. The following key services are offered:

• Inspection (Advanced Technologies)
• Maintenance (Reliability, predictive and preventative strategies)
• Operational & Process Support (Critical Operating and Process Windows)
  Risk Analysis and RBI
• Process Safety and Mechanical Integrity Services
• IT/Software Tools
• Management Strategies
• HSE Strategies
• Business and Financial Modeling
• Training
• Litigation Support

STAFF

The Houston office now has a dedicated team of professionals that are providing the services and support to our clients as described above. The Petrochemical staff are listed below. 

Thank you for your continued support

Stephen Anderson
Director - Petrochemical
APTECH Engineering
832-5930550
www.aptechtexas.com

© 2005, APTECH Engineering Services, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form without the express written permission of an officer of the company is strictly prohibited.