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New exhibitors hope to tap into strong
oil industry amidst faltering economy
By Julie A. Wiseman
Special to the Oil Report
With the oil industry holding strong while many other sectors falter, exhibit space at the Permian Basin International Oil Show continues to be in great demand. Sixteen new exhibitors have managed to wrangle booth space for the 2008 show.
The new exhibitors come from across the country, some being specifically oil-related companies and others touting oilfield applications for equipment with more general use.
AVC Mechanical Sales — Bill Clay of AVC Mechanical Sales in Grand Prairie, Texas said, “We’ve actually shown in it before. It’s been a few years ago. We make oil field valves and controls. We didn’t really have a very favorable booth space. Other booth spaces came available. I’ve been coming to this show since 1980. We just thought we’d give it another shot.”
They will be in booth D 77.
When asked if he expected the current economic crisis in the United States to have any impact on the show, Clay said, “Yes and no. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve seen booms and busts. This one’s different.”
Clay explained that the growing worldwide demand for oil and gas should keep things hopping for as far as he can see.
At the Oil Show, AVC will be representing Apollo valve and Tylock.
“Apollo valve is one of the last or the last remaining U.S. valve companies that has its own foundries. They’ve all closed and moved to China, India, Mexico or Vietnam. So many of the companies that I will be with in this oil show may assemble in the U.S., but they’ll bring it in from offshore,” Clay said.
In order to try to stay competitive on price Apollo uses the Lean Manufacturing system developed by Toyota in the 1970’s. This involves keeping inventory low and production time short.
Tylock is a tube fitting line, which is also made domestically.
CMP Oilfield Services, Inc. — This two-year-old company will be sending two to five representatives to man their booth, because they heard from others in the industry that “this offers a fantastic opportunity for our goods,” said Scott Spence.
“Our niche is in movement of bulk storage products, basically sand and cement, and in the vertical storage of both of these types of products. Our company can take sand or cement from the rail side all the way to downhole,” Spence said.
They also manufacture pressure vessels of all varieties and sizes. They are prepared with an engineering staff that is capable of doing custom applications.
“We make mobile bulk carrying equipment,” Spence summarized. “The code word in the industry would be mobile frac stand units.”
Cobra Welding and Manufacturing — Owner and operator David Piatt said his Oklahoma company has been trying to get exhibit space at the Permian Basin Oil Show for five years. A cancellation opened up space for Cobra this year.
Cobra is introducing a new pipe laydown machine. “We already have a presence in the Permian Basin with our service business. Now, we are trying to expand our pipe laydown machines in the Permian Basin and to the international market,” Piatt said.
“We’ve been working on the design from concept all the way through prototype the last five years. We’ve had our prototypes running in the field for the last two years. Now, it is time to market the machine,” he added.
In addition to operating a fabrication shop with diverse capabilities, Cobra provides mobile welding, repair and fabrication service. They also build and operate casing jacks.
Duncan Industrial Solutions — Greg Hibblen said he has exhibited in the oil show in the past as Duncan Equipment Company, but the company has expanded what it has to offer and is marketing those goods under the name Duncan Industrial Solutions.
With 60 years in the business, “We are the sole manufacturing agent and manufacturer for Halliburton Centrifugal Pump. We have been doing this for about 10 years. We are geared up now to where we can not only supply them (Halliburton) but can market it to other companies.
“This is the kick off for us. The first big push. We’ve done marketing brochures and cutaways of the pump. We’re interested in seeing what the reaction is gonna be,”Hibblen said.
This product began as a value added item for a single customer and ultimately launched the industrial distributor into the manufacturing business.
Duncan will have a couple of representatives in their booth throughout the week, with a couple more being in at various times.
Golight — Golight of Culbertson, Nebraska will bring to the Oil Show a remote controlled, mobile lighting device, which was first developed for agricultural use. Chuck Bunstock said they are not only anticipating getting to expand their place in the Texas and New Mexico oilfield, but to further their international exposure.
The lights, which can be magnetically mounted to a vehicle and run on 12-volt power, can be redirected from a remote location. They were designed by Jerry Gohl, company president and CEO, when he was farming and ranching. “He had the idea when he was checking cattle. He was tired of holding his arm out the window with a spotlight when he was looking for cows that were calving. His cousin was married to a design engineer who knew how to get it off the ground in 1994,” Bunstock recounted.
Today, “ag is probably our smallest market,” he said.
The device is sold all over the world with 20 to 25 percent of the sales being overseas. Market sectors include the oil industry, military, utilities, boating and recreation, fire rescue and law enforcement.
“We have made progress in sales in the oilfield area of our business. It seems to be a growing area so we decided to (exhibit at the Permian Basin Oil Show 2008),” said Bunstock.
He does not recall how they first began selling to oil-related companies. “They came to us. They had seen the light in some other application. We think there’s a lot of potential. We’ll invest a little money and step out and test the waters,” he concluded.
J.W. Williams, Inc. — Brandon Lusk, a native of West Texas, is introducing J.W. Williams, Inc. to the Permian Basin Oil Show this year. The Odessa office just opened in January 2007. Lusk said he is not sure that the company realizes the potential of this show. “It gives you quite a bit of exposure in places you don’t otherwise get it,” Lusk said. “It gets you a wide clientele that comes into one spot.”
With companies scrambling to meet the 2008 EPA mandates, J.W. Williams, Inc. will be spotlighting their new equipment that incinerates volatile organic compounds. They have made the first sale of the equipment in Texas this year and are anticipating more.
Beyond this new equipment, Lusk said they will display “a bunch of production equipment for the gas industry. There will be a wide (range of equipment) display.”
Lee TranServices, Inc. — Vice President John Vosters said that although this will be his company’s first time at the Permian Basin Oil Show, Lee TranServices, Inc. is no stranger to the oil industry.
Headquartered in Lufkin, Texas, the company’s first customer was Lufkin Industries. A significant number of their other clients are also oil and gas related. “In the past couple of years it’s been a real growing market,” noted Vosters.
Lee TranServices, Inc. provides regulatory compliance and risk management solutions for private and for-hire motor carriers.
Vosters said they provide “best practices” solutions for both driver and vehicle issues.
In relation to drivers, they deal with background investigations, screening, driver qualification, compliance and hours of service records along with drug and alcohol testing, all in relation to DOT guidelines.
For vehicles they provide solutions for titling, registration, permits, and ongoing fuel tax reporting for road and use taxes.
Lee TranServices also offers auditing service, compliance management reports and representation at DOT or state fuel motor tax audits.
Their solutions are paperless, offering web-based client document image viewing and “real-time” compliance management report data access.
Numa Drilling Services, LLC — Kathy Wagoner said they are not exactly new to the Permian Basin Oil Show, though it is the first time a booth will be labeled “Numa Drilling Services.”
“We are a new subsidiary of our mother company, Numa. We’ve been there (Permian Basin Oil Show) under a distributor. We go to a lot of shows and by far this is the best show. We were on a waiting list for months and just got on about eight weeks ago,” Wagoner said.
She says they are excited because they have something new to offer — drilling services. “As Numa we are a manufacturer of drilling tools. Numa Drilling Service is now actually running the tools. This is new for us.”
They will be promoting tools and the drilling service. “We are hoping for a 20-25 percent boost from this show. It should be more than that, but I don’t think we have the manpower,” Wagoner said.
Optibelt Corporation — President of U. S. Operations Philip Carlson said that “oil and energy applications for our products have been growing and other industries have been kind of leaving the U.S. We’re up about 25 percent this year. Oil industry is up, but not really there … West Texas and Texas in general haven’t really been exposed to us so much. We do real well in Bakersfield and the Middle East. In your area you have a lot of independent owners. Those are harder to reach. You need to be closer to the customer.”
Trying to bridge that gap, Optibelt has been on the waiting list for an exhibit space at the Permian Basin Oil Show for several years. Though Carlson realizes that this show is international in scope, the company’s first interest is to connect with the Permian Basin.
Optibelt is a German company that markets a full range of drive system products. Carlson said they will promote their special V-belt and banded V-belt designs at the Oil Show.
At a time when manpower is at a premium in the Permian Basin, Carlson said of his potential customers, “They are just used to replacing belts. They are on a certain preventive maintenance cycle. We can increase that time.”
Optibelt will show that their belts provide savings in preventive maintenance labor, energy efficiency and less frequent replacement.
Optibelt’s design eliminates the need for re-tensioning, freeing up man-hours and other resources.
It increases energy efficiency by avoiding the stretching that comes with most belts. Citing a number of industries that utilize the belts, Carlson said, higher energy efficiency has been shown “across the board.” For example, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems have seen from 12 to 30 percent higher energy efficiency.
The life expectancy of the belts is also longer than standard.
Much of the additional durability and efficiency is attributed to a 60-degree greater heat tolerance than the industry standard of 150 degrees. “This 60 degree advantage is enormous in improved efficiency,” said Carlson.
Optibelt uses a unique manufacturing process that they will be explaining at the show.
Protech Safety — Protech Safety of Big Spring is also scheduled to exhibit for the first time. Protech has developed bilingual warning systems to help prevent accidents in the oilfield. One system focuses on preventing injuries and fatalities caused by the start-up of automated pumping units. Another product works in conjunction with existing H2S monitors to provide verbal warnings. Their newest product gives an audible warning before a compressor startup.
Teledyne Analytical Instruments — Teledyne oxygen analyzers, sulfur analyzers and moisture analyzers are not new to the oilfield in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, but this will be the first time the California company exhibits at the Oil Show.
“The oil industry is doing just great. That’s a big selling point (for the show). We don’t have a real strong market share in West Texas,” Rob Milversted said, explaining why they will be exhibiting with their Albuquerque sales representative.
TXAM Pumps, LLC — Randall Haudek of Houston said TXAM will be promoting its newly redesigned solar-powered chemical injection pumps.
“The main buzz right now is a lot of the bigger companies are joining the EPA Gas Star program and trying to go green,” he said.
Of course, he noted, the old profit motive is still in full play.
Utilizing solar power allows companies to retain and market the gas that has traditionally been used to drive the pneumatic injector. This can represent several hundred to several thousand dollars of revenue per month. With TXAM pumps costing from $1800 to several thousand dollars each, they “can in a lot of cases pay for themselves in a month or less,” said Haudek.
TXAM focused on strengthening their pump in the redesign process. Haudek believes their pump can now do a lot higher pressure than their competitors. The drive mechanism design and timer are also selling points for the four to six representatives TXAM will have at the Permian Basin Oil Show.
Other first time exhibitors include Bobcat Pressure Control of Odessa, Equipment Technologies, LLC of Oklahoma City, Sonnax Industries of Bellows Falls, Vermont, and Western Diazo of Richmond, Texas.
The new exhibitors come from across the country, some being specifically oil-related companies and others touting oilfield applications for equipment with more general use.
AVC Mechanical Sales — Bill Clay of AVC Mechanical Sales in Grand Prairie, Texas said, “We’ve actually shown in it before. It’s been a few years ago. We make oil field valves and controls. We didn’t really have a very favorable booth space. Other booth spaces came available. I’ve been coming to this show since 1980. We just thought we’d give it another shot.”
They will be in booth D 77.
When asked if he expected the current economic crisis in the United States to have any impact on the show, Clay said, “Yes and no. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve seen booms and busts. This one’s different.”
Clay explained that the growing worldwide demand for oil and gas should keep things hopping for as far as he can see.
At the Oil Show, AVC will be representing Apollo valve and Tylock.
“Apollo valve is one of the last or the last remaining U.S. valve companies that has its own foundries. They’ve all closed and moved to China, India, Mexico or Vietnam. So many of the companies that I will be with in this oil show may assemble in the U.S., but they’ll bring it in from offshore,” Clay said.
In order to try to stay competitive on price Apollo uses the Lean Manufacturing system developed by Toyota in the 1970’s. This involves keeping inventory low and production time short.
Tylock is a tube fitting line, which is also made domestically.
CMP Oilfield Services, Inc. — This two-year-old company will be sending two to five representatives to man their booth, because they heard from others in the industry that “this offers a fantastic opportunity for our goods,” said Scott Spence.
“Our niche is in movement of bulk storage products, basically sand and cement, and in the vertical storage of both of these types of products. Our company can take sand or cement from the rail side all the way to downhole,” Spence said.
They also manufacture pressure vessels of all varieties and sizes. They are prepared with an engineering staff that is capable of doing custom applications.
“We make mobile bulk carrying equipment,” Spence summarized. “The code word in the industry would be mobile frac stand units.”
Cobra Welding and Manufacturing — Owner and operator David Piatt said his Oklahoma company has been trying to get exhibit space at the Permian Basin Oil Show for five years. A cancellation opened up space for Cobra this year.
Cobra is introducing a new pipe laydown machine. “We already have a presence in the Permian Basin with our service business. Now, we are trying to expand our pipe laydown machines in the Permian Basin and to the international market,” Piatt said.
“We’ve been working on the design from concept all the way through prototype the last five years. We’ve had our prototypes running in the field for the last two years. Now, it is time to market the machine,” he added.
In addition to operating a fabrication shop with diverse capabilities, Cobra provides mobile welding, repair and fabrication service. They also build and operate casing jacks.
Duncan Industrial Solutions — Greg Hibblen said he has exhibited in the oil show in the past as Duncan Equipment Company, but the company has expanded what it has to offer and is marketing those goods under the name Duncan Industrial Solutions.
With 60 years in the business, “We are the sole manufacturing agent and manufacturer for Halliburton Centrifugal Pump. We have been doing this for about 10 years. We are geared up now to where we can not only supply them (Halliburton) but can market it to other companies.
“This is the kick off for us. The first big push. We’ve done marketing brochures and cutaways of the pump. We’re interested in seeing what the reaction is gonna be,”Hibblen said.
This product began as a value added item for a single customer and ultimately launched the industrial distributor into the manufacturing business.
Duncan will have a couple of representatives in their booth throughout the week, with a couple more being in at various times.
Golight — Golight of Culbertson, Nebraska will bring to the Oil Show a remote controlled, mobile lighting device, which was first developed for agricultural use. Chuck Bunstock said they are not only anticipating getting to expand their place in the Texas and New Mexico oilfield, but to further their international exposure.
The lights, which can be magnetically mounted to a vehicle and run on 12-volt power, can be redirected from a remote location. They were designed by Jerry Gohl, company president and CEO, when he was farming and ranching. “He had the idea when he was checking cattle. He was tired of holding his arm out the window with a spotlight when he was looking for cows that were calving. His cousin was married to a design engineer who knew how to get it off the ground in 1994,” Bunstock recounted.
Today, “ag is probably our smallest market,” he said.
The device is sold all over the world with 20 to 25 percent of the sales being overseas. Market sectors include the oil industry, military, utilities, boating and recreation, fire rescue and law enforcement.
“We have made progress in sales in the oilfield area of our business. It seems to be a growing area so we decided to (exhibit at the Permian Basin Oil Show 2008),” said Bunstock.
He does not recall how they first began selling to oil-related companies. “They came to us. They had seen the light in some other application. We think there’s a lot of potential. We’ll invest a little money and step out and test the waters,” he concluded.
J.W. Williams, Inc. — Brandon Lusk, a native of West Texas, is introducing J.W. Williams, Inc. to the Permian Basin Oil Show this year. The Odessa office just opened in January 2007. Lusk said he is not sure that the company realizes the potential of this show. “It gives you quite a bit of exposure in places you don’t otherwise get it,” Lusk said. “It gets you a wide clientele that comes into one spot.”
With companies scrambling to meet the 2008 EPA mandates, J.W. Williams, Inc. will be spotlighting their new equipment that incinerates volatile organic compounds. They have made the first sale of the equipment in Texas this year and are anticipating more.
Beyond this new equipment, Lusk said they will display “a bunch of production equipment for the gas industry. There will be a wide (range of equipment) display.”
Lee TranServices, Inc. — Vice President John Vosters said that although this will be his company’s first time at the Permian Basin Oil Show, Lee TranServices, Inc. is no stranger to the oil industry.
Headquartered in Lufkin, Texas, the company’s first customer was Lufkin Industries. A significant number of their other clients are also oil and gas related. “In the past couple of years it’s been a real growing market,” noted Vosters.
Lee TranServices, Inc. provides regulatory compliance and risk management solutions for private and for-hire motor carriers.
Vosters said they provide “best practices” solutions for both driver and vehicle issues.
In relation to drivers, they deal with background investigations, screening, driver qualification, compliance and hours of service records along with drug and alcohol testing, all in relation to DOT guidelines.
For vehicles they provide solutions for titling, registration, permits, and ongoing fuel tax reporting for road and use taxes.
Lee TranServices also offers auditing service, compliance management reports and representation at DOT or state fuel motor tax audits.
Their solutions are paperless, offering web-based client document image viewing and “real-time” compliance management report data access.
Numa Drilling Services, LLC — Kathy Wagoner said they are not exactly new to the Permian Basin Oil Show, though it is the first time a booth will be labeled “Numa Drilling Services.”
“We are a new subsidiary of our mother company, Numa. We’ve been there (Permian Basin Oil Show) under a distributor. We go to a lot of shows and by far this is the best show. We were on a waiting list for months and just got on about eight weeks ago,” Wagoner said.
She says they are excited because they have something new to offer — drilling services. “As Numa we are a manufacturer of drilling tools. Numa Drilling Service is now actually running the tools. This is new for us.”
They will be promoting tools and the drilling service. “We are hoping for a 20-25 percent boost from this show. It should be more than that, but I don’t think we have the manpower,” Wagoner said.
Optibelt Corporation — President of U. S. Operations Philip Carlson said that “oil and energy applications for our products have been growing and other industries have been kind of leaving the U.S. We’re up about 25 percent this year. Oil industry is up, but not really there … West Texas and Texas in general haven’t really been exposed to us so much. We do real well in Bakersfield and the Middle East. In your area you have a lot of independent owners. Those are harder to reach. You need to be closer to the customer.”
Trying to bridge that gap, Optibelt has been on the waiting list for an exhibit space at the Permian Basin Oil Show for several years. Though Carlson realizes that this show is international in scope, the company’s first interest is to connect with the Permian Basin.
Optibelt is a German company that markets a full range of drive system products. Carlson said they will promote their special V-belt and banded V-belt designs at the Oil Show.
At a time when manpower is at a premium in the Permian Basin, Carlson said of his potential customers, “They are just used to replacing belts. They are on a certain preventive maintenance cycle. We can increase that time.”
Optibelt will show that their belts provide savings in preventive maintenance labor, energy efficiency and less frequent replacement.
Optibelt’s design eliminates the need for re-tensioning, freeing up man-hours and other resources.
It increases energy efficiency by avoiding the stretching that comes with most belts. Citing a number of industries that utilize the belts, Carlson said, higher energy efficiency has been shown “across the board.” For example, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems have seen from 12 to 30 percent higher energy efficiency.
The life expectancy of the belts is also longer than standard.
Much of the additional durability and efficiency is attributed to a 60-degree greater heat tolerance than the industry standard of 150 degrees. “This 60 degree advantage is enormous in improved efficiency,” said Carlson.
Optibelt uses a unique manufacturing process that they will be explaining at the show.
Protech Safety — Protech Safety of Big Spring is also scheduled to exhibit for the first time. Protech has developed bilingual warning systems to help prevent accidents in the oilfield. One system focuses on preventing injuries and fatalities caused by the start-up of automated pumping units. Another product works in conjunction with existing H2S monitors to provide verbal warnings. Their newest product gives an audible warning before a compressor startup.
Teledyne Analytical Instruments — Teledyne oxygen analyzers, sulfur analyzers and moisture analyzers are not new to the oilfield in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, but this will be the first time the California company exhibits at the Oil Show.
“The oil industry is doing just great. That’s a big selling point (for the show). We don’t have a real strong market share in West Texas,” Rob Milversted said, explaining why they will be exhibiting with their Albuquerque sales representative.
TXAM Pumps, LLC — Randall Haudek of Houston said TXAM will be promoting its newly redesigned solar-powered chemical injection pumps.
“The main buzz right now is a lot of the bigger companies are joining the EPA Gas Star program and trying to go green,” he said.
Of course, he noted, the old profit motive is still in full play.
Utilizing solar power allows companies to retain and market the gas that has traditionally been used to drive the pneumatic injector. This can represent several hundred to several thousand dollars of revenue per month. With TXAM pumps costing from $1800 to several thousand dollars each, they “can in a lot of cases pay for themselves in a month or less,” said Haudek.
TXAM focused on strengthening their pump in the redesign process. Haudek believes their pump can now do a lot higher pressure than their competitors. The drive mechanism design and timer are also selling points for the four to six representatives TXAM will have at the Permian Basin Oil Show.
Other first time exhibitors include Bobcat Pressure Control of Odessa, Equipment Technologies, LLC of Oklahoma City, Sonnax Industries of Bellows Falls, Vermont, and Western Diazo of Richmond, Texas.
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