Pon Power Oil & Gas
Powering ahead
As an official distributor of Caterpillar engines within the oil and gas sector since 1926, Pon Power Oil & Gas is a single source supplier for all power applications.
In 2001 the company’s activities in Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands combined to form the successful joint venture, Pon Power Oil & Gas. The business is now the largest engine dealer in the North Sea area, with over 30 years experience in the oil and gas sector. By combining the specific capabilities of the three companies, Pon Power Oil & Gas is now better placed to fulfil requirements for power modules within the oil and gas industry.
The organisation offers tailor-made solutions, whether for pumping, compression, power generation or other forms of auxiliary, main or emergency power. Pon Power’s customers are assured of professional support throughout the power unit’s entire life cycle. This knowledge and experience ensures the power unit has the optimum design right from the project’s initial study phase. Pon Power Oil & Gas is known for its quality, as well as the extensive additional services it provides, which include engineering and project management.
Pon Power Oil & Gas is now part of Pon Holdings, a large multinational group, incorporating businesses providing construction equipment, rental services, marine and industrial products, energy systems, and products for the oil and gas sector. Managing director, Jan van Nieuwenhuijzen, describes the benefits of being part of a larger organisation: “Being a part of Pon Holdings opens up a whole host of possibilities to improve the business.
“When your company is backed by a large global corporation, ideas can be implemented to actively grow and develop. As a small independent business it is sometimes hard to get the necessary resources to make this possible, but for us it’s much easier to make the resources available to realise growth. This is a very important benefit, and Pon as a company has a lot of experience with marketing and a well organised back office, as well as professional processes.
“As a relatively small company we are able to upgrade to the next level of business processes, working with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to support the processes in a professional way. This has turned us into a more professional partner to our customers, while remaining at heart a small and entrepreneurial company. This gives us higher levels of quality while retaining our flexibility and innovative spirit as we have remained relatively independent.”
In 2007 Pon Power Oil & Gas grew further when it acquired Fischcon Trading and Engineering. Jan elaborates: “Fischcon Trading and Engineering is a specialist in fire fighting equipment and hydraulic power packs. The company has good contacts in this sector and is well known internationally, especially in Singapore and Brazil. These systems are very complimentary to the emergency power and prime power solutions that we at Pon Power Oil & Gas supply.
“We soon realised that Fischcon’s customer base would also have a use for our power systems and at the same time we recognised that our own existing customer base at Pon Power Oil & Gas could also use the fire fighting systems that Fischcon provides, while they also offered complementary capabilities in engineering and construction. This was the rationale behind the acquisition, 
which came about after we recognised that Fischcon had been growing for a number of years as a customer of Pon Power Oil & Gas for Caterpillar engines. We decided we could add some value to the company and bring it to the next level – we hoped to double or triple the business in size. Growth and development are certainly two of our strong points and we recognised the ways that we could help Fischcon expand and improve.”
The two companies have been working in close co-operation ever since the acquisition to create a single enterprise resource planning application and more uniform business processes based on best practices. These actions are ahead of the full merger that will take place in 2009. The hopes for the merger are to develop the expertise and project management resources of both companies to deal more effectively with customer demand and provide a broader portfolio of solutions and even more resources to ensure customers’ project requirements are better fulfilled.
2009 will also see the launch of the Caterpillar engine product, MaK for the offshore oil & gas market. Jan explains the aims of this launch: “With the introduction of the MaK engine, we are looking to expand our scope of supply and our ability to offer larger power solutions. At the moment we can provide power of up to five mega watts per unit and we currently offer combined installations of 30mW but we want to go larger. This has been sparked by an increasing need in the field of drilling and FPSO’s, where there is a larger requirement for engines that are fuel-efficient and can deal with heavy fuel and gas. The MaK engine will enable us to offer an improved service to our customers.
“It is especially important in the current climate that we are offering competitive products and services, in terms of quality as well as price. There are currently some projects that have been delayed and some have been retendered, so there is a lot of pressure on costs. This is especially relevant, as the slowdown in the market will affect our business for 2009 and most likely 2010.
“Despite this, there is still a structural shortage of production equipment in the sector and so more investments are required in this area, which should see our business into the future. We predict that in the longer-term we will see healthier market conditions return, and as long as we can tailor our services to suit new customer requirements, there is no reason for our business to struggle in the future.”
Finally, Jan outlines his plans for the future: “We’ve already developed the business so that we supply more services directly to the customer. In the coming years we want to expand our services further, building on our extensive experience in the industry and our flexibility with regards to customer requirements. By doing this, we hope to achieve steady growth.”
Pon Power Oil & Gas and Fischcon
Services Power modules, engines and fire fighting