NI firm to create 10 new jobs after £2m investment boost

A Northern Ireland engineering company has announced plans for further growth after securing £2m in new funding from investors over the last two years, with the launch of a further investment round on the horizon.

Cookstown-based Decom Engineering received the backing from lead investors Cordovan Capital Management, Co-Fund NI, part of Invest Northern Ireland’s Access to Finance portfolio, and several private investors.

Decom Engineering has utilised investment up until now to fund business growth, including the recruitment of additional staff, increased marketing activity, additional manufacturing of existing products and business development.

The company founded by Sean Conway alongside his father and brother in 2012 currently has a team of 14 highly qualified staff that provide green decommissioning solutions to the oil and gas industry, improving safety, efficiency, and environmental impacts across the globe.

Decom’s innovative patented subsea and offshore cold cutting saws aid in the decommissioning of old or unused oil and gas pipes into a useable product, saving thousands of tonnes of scrap steel from being produced each year, massively reducing the industry’s carbon footprint.

It provides saws and pipe coating removal equipment for onshore, offshore, and subsea applications to a wide variety of oil and gas contractors, as well as pipe yards throughout the UK, Europe and North America.

Sean Conway, Managing Director, Decom Engineering said: “Decom Engineering started out ten years ago at trade shows and demos, building momentum slowly throughout our complex industry, and we took time to refine our products. Now, our pipe coating removal system is the fastest and greenest process on the market globally.

“We began by taking part in one of Catalyst’s start-up programmes which took us through the initial business A to Zs and eventually led to our introduction to Clarendon Fund Management and a range of other investment opportunities. We have expanded our business geographically and established a new site in Holland with a partner with our pipe coating removal system, which has been operational for 18 months and has already processed more than 20,000 tonnes of steel tubulars. We also recover & recycle all coatings from the process, completing the green life cycle.

“There have of course been hurdles in growing a business, but with such strong staff and a dynamic management team, we’ve faced up to those challenges and we’re succeeding. We are planning to grow our team by a potential further 10 staff in the next 12 to 18 months, effectively doubling the size of our business.”

The company has two main products, a pipe coating removal system and a pipe cutting product. Both can be used to decommission infrastructure or give a new lease of life to that same infrastructure, reducing the carbon footprint of the industry.

Nick McNally, Commercial Director at Decom Engineering added: “Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic we have had our challenges, just like any other business but we have adopted strict safety measures to ensure that production could continue as efficiently as possible.

“We want to continue to build relationships and locations, stay ahead of the curve in terms of supplying products and services to our end users, and to solve real-life problems in the decommissioning sector. We will continue to build our team and maintain a culture in our business that can be scaled up and rolled out internationally, with further investment opportunities around the corner.

“We provide only good quality machinery, we’re very green focussed, and we have an energetic team that adapt to the ever-changing landscape of the offshore decommissioning and construction industry.”

Co-Fund NI is part of Invest NI’s Access to Finance portfolio and part funded by European Regional Development Fund under the EU Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020. Clarendon Fund Managers manages Co-Fund NI.

To find out more about Decom Engineering and what they do, visit www.decomengineering.co.uk

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