In this weeks, super suspenseful, very exciting edition of “The Heat Treat Podcast” our handsome and very articulate host, Carlos Torres talks about heat treating for the oil and gas industries with Mr. Sam Moore. Sam is CEO of Specialty Heat Treat in Houston, Texas which “The Monty Heat Treat News” has ranked as the 29th largest commercial heat treat in all of North America 50 Largest North American Commercial Heat Treats 2021 | The Monty
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From well known heat treat industry supplier Thermcraft of Winston-Salem, NC, USA we have this press release about how they have just appointed Mr. Andy Belling as General Manager. “Welcome Andy Belling! We are pleased to welcome Andrew Belling to the Thermcraft team as the new General Manager. Andy comes us to us with a diverse career in manufacturing leadership. He also has a strong history and degree in Ceramics Engineering. We look forward to Andy propelling Thermcraft forward!”
Want to know more about the company? “The Monty Heat Treat News” visited the firm just over two years ago and this is how we described the company at the time; “Thermcraft Incorporated. Winston-Salem, North Carolina; For years we have been running across Thermcraft at all the various heat treat shows but we have never known a great deal about the company, so when the opportunity presented itself to visit the company we jumped at it. Thermcraft has almost 80 employees in a 75,000 square foot building and what they are very good at is custom designed, electrically heated furnaces, control systems, ovens and high temperature heaters. We very much doubt that they are very often the low bidder because everything we saw was absolutely top end.”
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Since 1999 “The Monty” has been publishing annually a list of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America based upon annual sales, our 2021 list can be found at https://themonty.com/articles/50-largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-2021-2/ This year readers will see we became much more ambitious and expanded the list to the 50 largest. In our 28th spot we have Flame Metals.
Flame Metals was founded in 1985 and operates a 100,000 square foot facility 7 days a week in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. With eleven integral quench furnaces (9000 lb max capacity) and two pit furnaces (25,000 lb capacity), the company is best known for its ability to process large critical components. Additional capabilities include continuous processing, vacuum, salt bath nitriding, neutral salt, induction, aluminum and car bottom.
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This press release talks about furnace builder Aichelin receiving a very substantial order from a US company for preventative maintenance as part of their “Heatxpress” technology. “Heatxpress” is dedicated to those companies providing car body parts for passenger cars. We had the privilege of looking at this technology in Austria as you can see in the attached picture.
For over five years, the subsidiary of the technology group has already been successfully operating several AICHELIN plants in the US. The plants from the AICHELIN “heatXpress” series are successfully used for the production of car body parts for passenger cars.
AICHELIN Service as a globally operating competence partner; Aichelin Service GmbH in Ludwigsburg has taken on the coordination of this complex maintenance project as a service partner. Experts of the customer’s locations in Germany will also be involved in the project. Several AICHELIN service units from Mödling/Austria and Ludwigsburg will work together across locations and are coordinated via the central project management at AICHELIN Service GmbH in Ludwigsburg. Thanks to the long-term partner-ship, the customer chooses AICHELIN’s top competence and service readiness for their international sites as well.
The upcoming maintenance works are part of a large-scale maintenance project that was launched in November 2021 and is set to be completed by the end of 2022. The AICHELIN Group’s U.S. company, AFC-Holcroft, is also involved in this project and, together with its European service colleagues, is ensuring the provision of a high quality of service to the customer. At peak times, up to 20 AICHELIN service employees will be on site in the US within several project phases. The aim of the current maintenance project is to update the plants to the latest technological standards over the coming months. This will ensure delivery capacity of the US plant’s ability to supply its customers by way of a high production reliability. The focus of the maintenance measures will be on burner technology and productivity of the high-speed transport systems inside the 920°C press-hardening furnaces.”
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February 16th of this year “The Monty Heat Treat News” had a story about a metallurgist being sentenced to prison of falsifying strength tests (the original item is below). The interest in this story was absolutely astounding to say the least with over 33,000 views on “The Monty Heat Treat News” which would be a new record for us. It was a very disappointing story but one which obviously caught a lot of peoples attention in the heat treat industry.
“Metallurgist Sentenced to Prison for Falsifying Strength Tests “A metallurgist in Washington state was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison and
a $50,000 fine Monday after she spent decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make U.S. Navy submarines. Elaine Marie Thomas, 67, of Auburn, Washington, was the director of metallurgy at a foundry in Tacoma that supplied steel castings used by Navy contractors Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding to make submarine hulls.
From 1985 through 2017, Thomas falsified the results of strength and toughness tests for about half the steel the foundry produced for the Navy. The tests were intended to show that the steel would not fail in a collision or in certain “wartime scenarios,” the Justice Department said. Thomas pleaded guilty to fraud last November. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle sentenced her in Tacoma, calling her actions a “crime of pride and ego, that in some way she knew better than those who set the standards,” according toa news release from Seattle U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. The sentence was less than half the nearly six years sought by prosecutors.
“Our Sailors and Marines depend upon high quality products and services from our contractors to safely and effectively meet the worldwide mission of the Department of the Navy,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said. “We will continue to insist that our contractors must meet these high standards.” There was no allegation that any submarine hulls failed. But authorities said the Navy has spent nearly $14 million, including 50,000 hours of engineering work, to assess the parts and risk to the 30 submarines affected. The Navy says it will incur further costs as it continues monitoring the subs. Thomas’ conduct came to light in 2017, when a metallurgist being groomed to replace her noticed suspicious test results and alerted their company, Kansas City-based Bradken Inc., which acquired the foundry in 2008. Bradken fired Thomas and initially disclosed its findings to the Navy, but the company then wrongfully suggested that the discrepancies were not the result of fraud. That hindered the Navy’s investigation into the scope of the problem as well as its efforts to remediate the risks to its sailors, prosecutors said.
In June 2020, the company agreed to pay $10.9 million in a deferred-prosecution agreement. When confronted with the doctored results, Thomas told investigators, “Yeah, that looks bad,” the Justice Department said. She suggested that in some cases she changed the tests to passing grades because she thought it was “stupid” that the Navy required the tests to be conducted at negative-100 degrees Fahrenheit (negative-73.3 degrees Celsius). In a letter to the court, Thomas said she was mortified at what she had done. Her attorney, John Carpenter, noted in a sentencing memorandum that she did not gain financially by faking the test results. He asked for a sentence of probation. “Ms. Thomas is good person who let a number of work pressures cause her to make bad decisions,” he wrote. “Ms. Thomas never intended to place any sailor at risk and is gratified that the Navy’s testing compels the conclusion that she has not.” From “Defense News”
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Monday global commercial heat treater Bodycote released their preliminary 2021 financial results which we summarized yesterday. So what do the financial markets think? This article which appeared in a UK publication by the name of “Alliance News” is fairly typical of the general reaction, the general reaction being quite positive.
“TOP NEWS: Bodycote swings to profit and grows revenue in 2021; (Alliance News) – Bodycote PLC on Monday reported a swing to profit in 2021 and increased revenue on a strong recovery in general industrial markets and the completion of its restructuring programme that delivered significant cost savings.
For 2021, the Cheshire-based thermal processing services provider swung to a pretax profit of GBP77.5 million from a loss of GBP1.5 million in 2020. The result was helped as Bodycote booked no exceptional items in the year, versus a charge of GBP58.4 million in 2020.
Further, its completed restructuring programme delivered permanent cost savings of GBP20 million in 2021.
The swing to profit was also supported by revenue growth of 7.1% to GBP615.8 million from GBP598.0 million the year before.
Bodycote credited this to a strong recovery in general industrial markets. Revenue rose 14% to GBP254 million in this market sector. Meanwhile. revenue in the automotive sector grew 9% to GBP168 million in 2021.
Bodycote declared a final dividend of 13.8 pence, bringing the total payout to 20.0p. This reflects a 3.1% increase from 19.4p paid out in 2020.
Bodycote noted that it has no direct exposure to Russia, Belarus or Ukraine. “At this stage, it is too early to predict the broader potential impacts on the group but we continue to monitor the situation closely and will take any necessary actions warranted by unfolding events,” the firm stated.
The thermal processing services provider said that its General Industrial segment continued to perform “strongly” during the year, while growth in its Civil Aerospace sector accelerated. The firm noted supply chain disruption in its Automotive business but said “signs of improvements are evident.”
“We saw good progress in 2021, with margins increasing to 15%, as Bodycote benefited from strong recovery in general industrial markets and completion of the restructuring programme. The results also highlight the progress we are making in our strategic focus areas,” said Chief Executive Stephen Harris.
“In summary, the board expects further progress in 2022, but remains mindful of the current geopolitical and macro-economic landscape.”
Bodycote shares were trading 1.2% higher in London on Monday morning at 668.00 pence each.”
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UK based Bodycote the world’s largest commercial heat treater and the only truly global heat treater has just released their 2021 Preliminary Financial Results which can be found in their entirety at The leading provider of heat treatment and specialist thermal processing services worldwide – Bodycote plc The basic summary directly from the Bodycote website is included below.
Highlights Results;
- Revenues up 7.1% at constant currency to £615.8m (organic revenues up 5.2%)
- Headline operating margin at 15.4% (2020: 12.6%) §
- Free cash flow of £105m
- Closing net debt1 of £52m
- Final ordinary dividend 13.8p, total year 20.0p (2020: 19.4p)
Strategic Progress;
- 2020 restructuring programme completed, with permanent cost savings of £20m delivered in 2021
- Incremental £10m of permanent cost savings to come in 2022
- Emerging Markets’ revenues up 17% at constant currency
- Specialist Technologies’ revenues up 7%4 , outperforming Classical Heat Treatment
- Strong margin improvement anticipated as revenues grow
Commenting, Stephen Harris, Group Chief Executive said: “We saw good progress in 2021, with margins increasing to 15.4%, as Bodycote benefited from strong recovery in general industrial markets and completion of the restructuring programme. The results also highlight the progress we are making in our strategic focus areas.
“As we moved into 2022, General Industrial continued to perform strongly, and Civil Aerospace growth has accelerated. Bodycote’s Automotive business continued to be impacted by supply chain disruption for our customers, but signs of improvement are evident. And while we expect cost inflation to persist, we will continue to manage its impact on the business. In summary, the Board expects further progress in 2022, but remains mindful of the current geo-political and macro-economic landscape. “Looking further ahead, the outlook for the business remains positive as we benefit from high profit drop through on revenue growth across all our market sectors.”
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Amidst all the doom and gloom in the world these days it can be easy to forget that many businesses continue to grow and prosper-commercial heat treater Thermal Vac out in California is a good example. Almost exactly one year ago we posted the update below about the company. Their name comes up today because work is progressing on their brand new Arizona location (as can be seen in this photo) and every day that goes by brings them a little closer to opening day.
“February 2021; Commercial Heat Treater Thermal Vac Making Substantial Investments; In 2020 we ranked commercial heat treater Thermal Vac as one of the largest commercial heat treats in North America https://themonty.com/project/l
For over three decades we have been sought out by customers who require the most innovative solutions for challenging project needs, effectively helping to secure a position as a leader in the industry. With an original facility of 5,500 square feet and 11 active customers, Thermal-Vas transformed into a multiple location company with over 60,000 square feet of campus footprint. We have 80 team members, with 50 in production. Thermal-Vac is a family-owned business with second generation family leaders heading the business since 2012. Our team is comprised of many family-oriented relationships with over 25% of our employees being related to each other in some way.” https://www.thermalvac.com/
Since that article the company has been very busy-lets summarize a little;
- Sean Driscol, President of the company and son of the founder Steve Driscol was recently named President of the new location “Thermal Vac Arizona”. While this location is still a work in progress we do know that it will include a shiny new vacuum furnace.
- The facility in Orange, CA has added a new salt bath.
- On the way is a brand new Gasbarre nitriding furnace.
It’s always great to see a family owned business transition from first generation to second generation and in the case of Thermal Vac the transition seems to be going smoothly.
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Specialty Heat Treat, Inc. is a family owned business and was founded in 1993 by Tom Moore in Houston, TX. SHT operates a 100,000 square foot facility on 9 acres and has grown to 42 furnaces up to 25’ in length. Customers include small machine shops, steel warehouses, OEM’s, and forgers almost exclusively servicing the oil and gas markets. Since 1994, furnaces have been in operation 24/7 with the exception of a few hurricanes.
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The graph below shows extreme volatility for spot nickel pricing in just the past few days. It appears to be a given that for a number of reasons nickel demand will be increasing for the next number of years which will put upward pressure on pricing but how much pressure is the question-your guess is as good as ours.
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