For close to 40 years the VENKO Group has delivered high quality independent coating solutions to clients representing a varied pool of industries and applications

Well covered

The group was founded in 1975 and began its life offering services for outdoor applications including high-tension pylons and substations. Today VENKO still actively provides solutions in these areas as well as for offshore platforms, transmission masts, railway bridges, pipe spools and sluice gates. To accommodate its diverse client base and ensure that it offers the very best targeted solutions, VENKO operates three dedicated divisions comprised of VENKO Outdoor, VENKO Offshore and VENKO Indoor.

VENKO has developed a diverse base of specialist services that it is able to offer its clients, the most numerous of which are its comprehensive coating systems. These include solutions for portable water, fire protection, roof and insulating coatings. Furthermore the company is an expert in rope access techniques and service preparation at height, which is of particular importance for pylon and transmission mast preparation projects. Its coating solutions are supported by a range of blasting applications that are comprised of machine, sponge and nevel-jet blasting types with a wide spectrum of blast media and materials.

Since it was last featured in European Oil and Gas Magazine during July 2013, VENKO has continued to deliver market-leading solutions across all of its targeted sectors including the offshore market. During that feature, VENKO Offshore business unit manager Tom Herok discussed a new base that had been established in the UK located at Great Yarmouth to support a barge intended to move from platform to platform. “The main reason we are setting up a presence in the UK is to support our activities on the Shell contract for 35 platforms,” he said. “But of course we also want to expand our business in the UK and that is planned for 2014. In 2013 our focus was purely on the successful start of the barge campaign working in the UK waters.”

Less than a year later and the VENKO Offshore office in Great Yarmouth is operating successfully in carrying out operations for Shell and has even found a second reliable client, operating from inside the UK. “We have established ourselves well in Great Yarmouth and we have some good personnel in the office, primarily to assist our current maintenance project with Shell,” Tom says. “We have also gained a new client named Perenco and that has helped develop the office even further. This has transformed the Great Yarmouth office from being a support office for the Shell project to becoming a self-supporting office for the Perenco contract.”

This latest development entails a guaranteed three-month project for maintenance operations for one Perenco platform with the potential for others to follow, as Tom elaborates: “We have a contract for the first platform and options for two more this year. This is for full maintenance including scaffolding, painting and insulation services. The time of operation for each platform will be roughly three months per location and the first people went offshore in March and we are now in operation. The client was very happy with our first wave of mobilisation and was very complimentary about how we approached it. We’ve had a good start, so our focus in the UK now will not be to find a new client but to ensure that we execute our current contracts to the client’s complete satisfaction.”

Outside of the UK, since July 2013, VENKO Offshore has completed a further four plaforms throughout the globe and was recently awarded a contract for fabric maintenace of a 40,000m2 platform by Total in the Netherlands. “This project will share a lot of similarities with our current Shell contract, so we will be able to apply our experience and unique way of working to this new endeavour,” Tom says. The ability of VENKO to attract blue-chip companies such as Shell, Total and others is reflective of the highly respected reputation that the company has developed through a portfolio of successfully completed projects. Further to this, VENKO Offshore has demonstrated that it is able to operate in a flexible manner and deliver cost-effective results without compromising on quality.

Unlike competing companies within the same field, VENKO offers its clients cost saving benefits within its pricing structure that enables its customers to clearly identify the final cost of work and avoid any unexpected costs, as Tom explains: “We offer a unique contract in the offshore industry, the standard is an hourly based contract but we offer fixed prices. This gives us a better relationship between VENKO and the client, which we see as another strength of VENKO Offshore.”

As VENKO looks to the rest of 2014 and beyond its main aim will be to ensure that it consolidates its investment in new facilities by executing its current contracts to the total satisfaction of its clients. “During 2014 the focus for our offshore operations will obviously be to carry out the work that we have been awarded,” Tom says. “We are convinced that if we perform well this will generate its own business. So we are not looking to actively approach clients, we are focused on meeting the needs of our current customers and through positive execution more work will follow,” he concludes.

VENKO Offshore BV
Services: Independent coating specialist