04-09-2014

Graham Corporation awarded $7.5M in orders for oil refinery and petrochemical projects

Graham Corporation, a global business that designs, manufactures and sells critical equipment for the oil refining, petrochemical and power industries, including the supply of components and raw materials to nuclear energy facilities, announced today that it has secured four new orders totaling approximately $7.5 million for oil refining and chemical industry projects.

Graham, which has significant market share in China for distillation column vacuum systems for oil refineries, will engineer and manufacture an ejector system for a new oil refinery currently under construction in China. The ejector system is scheduled for shipment in approximately 12 months.

James R. Lines, Graham’s President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “In just an eight-year period, we have successfully built a strong brand and market position in the oil refinery industry in China. This success was facilitated by our unique sales approach, which involves our early participation in project planning with customers. The technical assistance we offer is intended to support customer operating objectives, thereby allowing us to integrate our products into facility design. We are known for our quality, and especially valued in China are the depth and breadth of our quality assurance processes for components fabricated in-country. Additionally, we believe that our on-location manufacturing specialists and our project management, as well as the post-installation support and training we provide, give us differentiating advantages in this market.”

China is expected to be the world’s largest oil consumer in 2014, and net daily refining capacity in China is expected to expand by 4.4 million barrels of oil by 2020. Comparatively, in the same time period, the U.S. is expected to increase net capacity by roughly 400,000 barrels of oil per day.

Two separate orders are for U.S. petrochemical facilities investing in incremental capacity as a result of the availability of low-cost natural gas that serves as a primary feedstock and energy source for the petrochemical plants. Each plant requires steam surface condensers and planned shipment is within 12 months.

The Company’s fourth project being announced today is for a liquid ring compressor package for an upgrader application in the Canadian oil sands region. This package will be shipped in approximately 18 months.

Mr. Lines concluded, “I believe that these wins are a reflection of the ongoing improvement in our oil refining and petrochemicals markets and are a testament to the success we are having with our sales and marketing strategy to expand our opportunities.”