SRJ, a design engineering company, has patented a range of weld-free mechanical couplings which are used for pipeline repair and construction, primarily in the oil and gas sector. The business is head-quartered in Jersey, but creates subsidiary manufacturing companies in the countries it has contracts in.
‘The world has really become about local content,’ explained SRJ chief executive Alexander Wood. ‘Someone in Brazil doesn’t want to buy something that can only be made in Norway. So, we are manufacturing in the parts of the world we’re working.We’re not a foreign company, we’re manufacturing with a Brazilian company, it’s our design and our innovation and we’re sending engineers to work with them. This will be made with an American stamp on it and we’re getting a wallaby triangle on our product in Australia because it’s being made in Australia.
‘Very much our business model is a low-footprint model. In Jersey, it’s the IP and the higher-level development and the thought leadership.’
The business is due to list on the Australian stock exchange early next year and Mr Wood said it was a natural choice for the company. ‘Australia has either become or is about to become the largest LNG producer in the world, going past Qatar. Australia is also an interesting market because it has areas such as the Bass Strait, which are very historic, some of the oldest oil and gas sites in that part of the world, all the way through to a very big LNG market which has been developed over the last few years. So it’s really interesting, unlike the North Sea, which is generally all quite historic.
‘Australia is also very sensitive to its greenhouse gas targets and it has breached those targets, which has been quite well publicised. One of the reasons cited from a political perspective, is their increasing LNG production. So they’re very sensitive to fugitive emissions and to loss containment. We make repair clamps, pipe couplings, and other technologies which are focused around maintaining containment and around safety and leaks. That makes Australia a very interesting market for us.
‘Australia has also generated a lot of its wealth through natural resources and the energy sector. So whereas in the London market there’s a lot of tech investors, a lot of financial investors, I find that in my presentations to the Australian investor community, there’s far less explanation required of what we do.
‘From an institutional perspective in the London markets, it’s very rare that institutions would participate in such a small company, but we have secured Australian institutional participation in the pre-IPO round. It’s a ready-made market for us. There’s a customer base for the products and also an investor base which understand this type of technology.’
