Deritend Industries, the Midlands-based national maintenance and engineering group, has completed a flagship project to refurbish a ‘house-sized’ water cooling pump from Alcan Power Station in Ashington, Northumberland.
The pump, which is capable of pumping around 65,000 gallons of water per minute, weighs over 25 tonnes and is one of the largest of its kind in existence.
The completion of work on the colossal piece of machinery, carried out at Deritend’s flagship West Bromwich branch, represents a major coup for Deritend which, according to MD Richard Hale, is beginning to ‘flex its muscles’ in the UK industrial sector.
“Our West Bromwich facility has the capacity to cope with the biggest renovation jobs that the UK industrial sector has to throw at us,” Hale explained, “and with this robust infrastructure in place we are really starting to go for it and take on the biggest jobs that we can.
“This project for Alcan Power Station represents a sea change for Deritend,” he continued, “whereby we are using the capacity and ability at our disposal to offer a breadth of service that few others can compete with.
“For Alcan, we have taken on the project in its entirety, from removal through to recommissioning,” he added. “With our experienced and skilled team, supported by a capable facility, there is nothing we can’t accomplish for our customers.”
The project has taken three months to complete, with Deritend managing each stage of the refurbishment process since decommissioning the pump in June. Having completed work on the pump, Deritend is now transporting it back to Alcan Power Station in Ashington, where it will be re-commissioned and back online early next week.
Deritend West Bromwich – whose focus has historically been on gearboxes and electric motors – will now be targeting similar contracts as part of a major push to continue to develop as one of the Midlands engineering sectors brightest prospects.
The successful Alcan Power Station project comes hot on the heels of major contract wins with both Severn Trent Water and United Utilities – two giants of the UK water industry.