Staying resilient amid crises

TIME and again, Oilfield Services & Supplies Pte Ltd has proved resilient in the face of the crises the family business has faced.

Today, the company prides itself on overcoming numerous challenges since its inception, including the 2016 oil crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic last year.

Corporate development manager, Diana Ong said: "After the oil crisis in 2016, things started to pick up in 2019. That was one of our record years, as we achieved year-on-year growth of 25 per cent.

"We had an aggressive budget for 2020, but then the pandemic struck and oil prices went down again."

Fortunately, Oilfield Services had a backlog of orders from 2019 which could sustain the business for the first half of the year. "After that, things slowed down, but in recent months around August, we started to see things picking up again," she said.

Apart from the initial years, Oilfield Services had been profitable since their inception, except for 2016 when the oil crisis hit. Kenneth Loh, business development manager, said 2016 was a hard year, as not only did the company have to deal with the oil crisis, it was the year the company lost its founder.

"But we take pride in saying that last year was a difficult year as well, and we still remained profitable," he said.

VENTURING OVERSEAS

This year, the company is aiming for 20 per cent revenue growth from 2020.

In order to remain increasingly relevant in the market, the company has found ways to diversify its business.

Apart from its core oil and gas business, the company has delved into a process called Armoloy Thin Dense Coating (TDC). In this process, a thin dense chrome coating is applied on an equipment to prolong its life by increasing wear resistance and cohesion resistance.

Managing director Kay Ong said: "We are the first in South-east Asia to be certified for this process. We decided to learn more about the process and get a licence for it because if we don't, we will need to send it back to the US for the process to be carried out."

Mr Loh said this process can be used on a variety of applications, such as the oil and gas, aerospace and the semiconductor industry.

"We hope that with Armoloy, we are able to leverage it and diversify into other industries," he said.

Today, Oilfield Services & Supplies has ventured into several markets globally, including Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and China. The newest workshop in Kazakhstan started operations last November.

Plans to set up the next facility in Balikpapan, Indonesia, are in the pipeline.

"We aim to launch the workshop in Balikpapan by Q2 this year," said Mr Ong.

In order to infiltrate the overseas markets, Oilfield Services & Supplies works closely with Enterprise Singapore. The team joins mission trips in order to identify what the needs are in that area.

"For example, after our mission trip in Kazakhstan, there were people there who were interested in our scope of product offerings. After several meetings, we decided that it was a good market to explore and to set up our workshop," said Mr Ong.

Ms Ong added that customers also identify the company as a critical and quality vendor, and want to work with them to set up repair workshops.

"Customers approach us and tell us they need a repair workshop in a particular country, and want to work with us to set up a workshop in areas where they need one," she said.

Mr Ong said he treats the relationship with customers as more of a partnership.

In one of their projects in Russia, Oilfield Services & Supplies partnered with its client to drill the longest well drilled by the client, stretching 5km in length.

"They are well-versed in drilling, whereas we are well-versed in applying hard-facing on stabilisers. So we come together, sit down and come up with ideas to see how we can integrate or modify the process to work well for them," said Mr Ong.

"We were very proud of this job because it was a very high-profile one."

For the company, one of the greatest challenges of being in this business is having to keep up with the dynamic and fast-paced environment of the oil and gas industry, where demands are ever-changing, he said.

Mr Loh added: "Because of the nature of the industry, we have to be nimble and agile because customers can demand something today, but change their minds tomorrow. We need to maintain a robust internal system to cope with these changes.

"We hope to continue to find a strong foothold in the oil and gas industry, which is our core industry and become more relevant with proprietary products and processes. Outside of oil and gas, we would also like to diversify and identify adjacent or complementary industries we can support," he said.