importeur Pipe SS11b-CapitalValves

Britain´s Capital Valves Ltd finds a perfect partner in Johannesburg

Beating global competition
with valves from South Africa

Capital Valves director Graham Chandler was “looking for a manufacturer of more advanced valve types and styles” when he came across Gunric Valves from South Africa, an exporter selected and coached by the CBI. Gunric had just what Capital needed. The partnership that evolved has landed both firms multi-million dollar orders with numerous prestigious projects.

Capital Valves is the largest independently owned valve distribution company in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Northern Europe with a turnover of £36 million in 2007. With plants in London and Cambridge, Capital Valve’s own product base has historically consisted of a wide variety of specialised industrial valves. The firm first visited Gunric Valves in South Africa in 2003. A firm relationship quickly developed. “We were looking for a manufacturer of more advanced valve types and styles”, says director Graham Chandler. “This included the triple offset butterfly valve, which I believed had great potential among the valves being produced around the world. South Africa offered a lower base cost manufacturing area and provided an already established price advantage over the market leaders in Italy.”

Victory over global competition

With Gunric on board, Capital was soon able to win a major $ 1.4 million project for Tengizchevroil, a Chevron joint venture in Kazakhstan, beating major rivals from the UK and Italy. Further success followed with contracts for Sabic Yanbu in Saudi Arabia worth $2 million. Six months of concentrated engineering led to another joint victory over global competition with the Saudis´ prestigious Sabic Yanbu project. All in all, the two partners have secured major orders throughout the Middle East, Kazakhstan and North Africa.
Currently Capital and Gunric are working on actuated valves for the Saudi Kayan project via Fluor Houston USA, Camberley UK and KBR Singapore. The orders for this project are valued at $1.5 million. And the latest success for both companies has been a tilting disc valves order worth $600k for the Ma’aden project in Saudi Arabia for Worley Parsons Ltd in Bahrain. The Ma’aden Phosphate project is the largest project currently being carried out globally.

The heavy burden of exhibiting

Graham Chandler is more than pleased with his company´s partnership with Gunric. “The relationship is based upon trust and is a definite win-win scenario for all concerned. Our success has been forged through competitiveness, sound quality and providing a product which does what it is supposed to: it does not leak.”
Chandler emphasises that the CBI has played a crucial role in all of this. “The CBI has been of importance in allowing our relationship to flourish through assisting Gunric in the heavy burden of exhibiting in the European market place. We have visited with them at these exhibitions to assist them in manning the stand and introducing them to our client base through direct customer contact and also in helping to fend off unwanted advances from competitors. Without the CBI, they would not have been there and we would not have been with them.”

www.capitalvalves.com