Process plants are reliant on various technologies for successful production. Today’s reality is that these technologies are often forced to work under the harshest conditions. Related products must therefore be of uncompromising quality and backed by excellent service.

Last year, Ecochem Pumps was appointed exclusive distributor of the Soméflu range of chemical transfer pumps throughout South Africa and neighbouring countries. In late April, Adrien Hourlier, Soméflu’s international sales manager, visited South Africa to provide support and further strengthen the relationship.

Ecochem has for many years supplied the market with Milton Roy’s range of chemical dosing pumps. Although Milton Roy technology is not connected to the business of Soméflu, both companies are French. In addition, the Soméflu chemical transfer pump is complementary to the Milton Roy chemical dosing pump in process operations. These synergies are expected to help Soméflu with initial sales, and Ecochem Pumps made use of the installed Milton Roy product base during Hourlier’s visit to introduce him to existing customers, where he made presentations on the Soméflu product range.

Current trends

During his visit, Hourlier and Ecochem Pumps general manager, Richard Rudling, issued a statement outlining current industry trends and Soméflu’s plans for the future.

According to Hourlier, the market for chemical transfer pumps is generally shrinking in terms of small orders, but growing for larger orders. This is because of the trend towards the closure of smaller plants in many industries, and their replacement by larger plants with a greater throughput, which can then take advantage of economies of scale to deliver a lower cost of production per unit.

Hourlier explained that almost any type of plant makes use of corrosive fluids of one type or another, resulting in the Soméflu range of pumps having almost universal application. He said that internationally the company’s main business is within chemical and fertiliser manufacture, petrochemicals and the mines. Soméflu technology is also applied to water treatment, which Hourlier sees as an important growth path for the company in Africa.

Rudling added that Ecochem Pumps will also be looking at steel production for the Soméflu product, because of the French company’s international experience in pickling applications and acid regeneration.

Plans for South Africa

Ecochem Pumps recently received a significant order for Soméflu pumps from a leading platinum mine in North West province. These pumps, already supplied and installed, are expected to be commissioned soon.

Besides mining, Rudling said that Ecochem would be making a particular effort to target new petrochemical and chemical manufacturing plants in South Africa, and anticipates capturing a respectable share of the business emanating from locally designed and managed projects.

However, he added that the challenge with new plants will be to gain entry to those that are funded from abroad. In such cases, he said that one could expect most of the products incorporated in the plant to be sourced from the country funding the project.

“We will target replacement business in these overseas-funded projects,” said Rudling.

“In some instances, the foreign products that will be used are not built to last and represent a comparatively high lifetime cost of ownership. We will be ready to help when the plant operators discover this fact,” he continued.

Soméflu recently received a very large order for a fertiliser super plant to be built in Morocco. This plant was funded by the US and designed in India. It required close cooperation by engineers from the three different countries. Hourlier said that such multinational projects would always present an opportunity for sales of the Soméflu product, provided the local supplier could provide on-site fault diagnosis.

Life cycle costing

Although the rand’s current tendency towards slow depreciation will obviously have a direct impact on product pricing, Rudling emphasised that Ecochem Pumps is familiar with effective price management because of the company’s imports of Milton Roy products. Commenting on this, Rudling said that Soméflu pumps would be priced competitively.

“But we will not be competing on price alone,” he said. “Rather, we will compete on lowest lifetime cost.”

African markets

Discussing the organisation’s plans for markets beyond South Africa, Hourlier explained that Ecochem has a mandate to service all English-speaking African countries, in many of which Soméflu already has an installed pump base.