US Cameron, a group with 6bn-dollar turnover, specialising inequipment and services for the oil industry, says the newproduction facility opened in Ploiesti has the capacity to generateturnover worth 200m dollars during its first operational year,delivering equipment exclusively for export to world giants such asExxonMobil (US), Statoil (Norway) or British Petroleum.
The investment of Ploiesti was finalised two weeks ago, withconstruction works having been started around a year and a halfago.
Cameron invested 80m dollars in this facility, which it hopes torecoup in three to four years, and it has created 300 jobs, ofwhich 120 are already filled. For the rest of 180 jobs, around30-40 candidates vie per position.
"I believe around 200-300 people worked for this project, andthe contractors were firms of Romania. At any rate, it's moredifficult to build a plant from scratch than rehabilitate a newone," stated Marius Tripsa, general manager of Cameron Romania, inthe context where the US group has been present on the domesticmarket since 2004 after having bought the old oil equipment plantSterom Campina.
"We have adapted to a continuously rising market, that ofexploration in increasingly tougher environments. We're practicallycompleted this investment at the right moment," believes Tripsa. AtSterom Campina, Cameron last year derived turnover worth above 200mdollars.
According to Tripsa, there were several countries that competedwith Romania for the new production facility, but there wereseveral factors that tipped the balance for Ploiesti. "In Romaniawe're registered very good results at Sterom, we know we had a verygood workforce from which we could choose the future employees, andlocal authorities were on our side. Since 2004, when we took overSterom, we've brought around 40m dollars, and the productivity ofthe 850 employees we have has tripled during this period," Tripsaspecified.
The US group says the old plant in Campina will not be closed inthe wake of investments in Ploiesti, because the two productionfacilities are complementary.
Beyond the wave of optimism generated by the opening of the newplant, Tripsa admits the economic downturn has had an unexpectedlybig impact over the facility in Campina. He believes the marketwill rebound in 2010, but not to the 2008 level.
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