GFSA Ltd

A wider reach

GFSA Ltd specialises in the design and manufacture of filtration and process equipment, which balances leading edge technology with the green agenda.

Since its formation, GFSA has become recognised for providing a total service with high standards of quality, reliability, and efficiency. The company is now looking to build upon this reputation further to become an internationally renowned supplier in its field.

To this end, GFSA has started out by strengthening its existing capabilities. Since 2006 the company has operated out of a modern 4.5-acre site in Stourbridge, West Midlands, which was recently added to with a new factory unit incorporated at the end of 2012. Furthermore, GFSA has secured planning permission for another additional unit at the base on which construction is expected to begin shortly.

This represents a crucial element in GFSA’s plans to expand its business in response to the global demand from the oil and gas industry for such equipment. Describing how the business intends to more forcefully tap into this market, business development manager Alan Kilkenny says: “Although to date we’ve already carried out a lot of export work around the world it has tended to be through third parties such as EPC contractors and equipment manufacturers. We’re therefore now on a drive to raise the profile of GFSA generally around the world.

“We’re focusing on the oil and gas sector, where we see a lot of opportunity with an increase in spending on new and existing production capacity by the major national oil and gas companies around the world. There seems to be a huge investment into oil and gas processing plant, both onshore and offshore, so we are looking towards key markets such as Brazil, Singapore and the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, and Qatar are all target countries for us and there is potentially a huge market for us in Australia, where there have been a lot of LNG discoveries,” he continues.

Historically GFSA’s greatest export market has been Norway and the company is hoping to repeat that success on a much wider basis. Key to this strategy is the appointment of agency representatives in prominent hub areas that will enable GFSA to offer a local point of contact to its customers and help it secure new business in these regions. At OSEA 2012 the company was pleased to announce a new partnership with the appointment of Kenson Enterprise Pte Ltd as its Singapore-based agent.

People are also GFSA’s greatest asset closer to home. The company boasts a high quality workforce, whose competence, motivation, and enthusiasm helps ensure it achieves its goals. This includes providing complete customer satisfaction through a personal service right from receipt of enquiry through to full completion and after sales. As part of its ongoing expansion, GFSA is recruiting additional personnel to help meet new demand.

With a vast portfolio of standard filtration and process equipment, GFSA is able to fulfil almost every need from individual strainers, filters and flame arrestors to large specialised process filtration systems. Furthermore, with over 200 weld procedure qualifications in various materials, GFSA can meet most industry requirements. This is supported by approvals from world recognised accreditation bodies including fabrication codes ASME, DNV, NORSOK, GOST, EN13445 and ATEX, and stringent quality systems such as ISO, OHSAS, FPAL, and Achilles.

As an in-house designer and manufacturer though, GFSA’s greatest strengths lie in its custom made and specialist equipment. “This is where the client is looking for something specifically designed to suit a certain process, and is the area where we are really concentrating our design expertise and manufacturing capability,” notes Alan. “It also opens up opportunities for us in markets where local content is a requirement. A lot of standard products are already manufactured in the region itself, whereas high specification custom equipment provides opportunity for a specialist supplier like us”

Although its global focus and expanding business capabilities are helping secure GFSA’s future, as Alan notes, a lot of the company’s success comes down to the critical function its products fulfil: “Everything is very much focused around the oil and gas industry at the moment with oil, LNG, by-products, hydrocarbon gas, and even produced water all needed to be treated. During the many processing operations filtration is a key element not only for improving the condition of process gas and liquid streams but also to protect other processing equipment in the line from a range of contaminants that might erode or damage it.

“There’s also a need to clean up any waste process streams before they are returned to the environment or reintroduced back into another stage of production. As such, there’s a lot of scope for our high-pressure filtration equipment in this market and we’re primed to take advantage of that,” he concludes.

GFSA Ltd
Products: Filtration and process equipment