Home: Issue 2 2010 › A big impact
A big impact
02/03/2010 | Channel: Business
AGA has recently invested in a new liquefied nat ural gas terminal in Sweden, scheduled for completion in 2011
As a member of the global Linde Group, AGA is the leading industrial gas company in Northern Europe. It supplies various industrial gases for a range of sectors, including pharmaceutical, food, chemical, energy, construction, environmental protection, metallurgical, research and development and electronics. Its operations are focused mainly in Scandinavia and the Baltic region, and it has customers in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. In the Nordic countries, AGA is also a market leader within the cylinder liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business in addition to being a key provider of biogas to the bio fuel stations in the Stockholm area.
The company benefits from a wealth of expertise and experience in the cryogenic field, having been founded in 1904 by Gustaf Dalén, a Swedish Nobel laureate. Initially, AGA specialised in acetylene gas for railway lighting, before gradually diversifying to cover the whole gas sector by the late 1960s. Today, AGA employs around 1700 people in the Nordic and Baltic countries and its service portfolio has expanded to include solutions for mainstream industries, such as cleaning of wastewater, chemical recovery, fluid temperature control, cryogenic deflashing, flame straightening and vulcanising.
President of AGA Jan Bäckvall elaborates on some of the company’s key strengths: “We are rather diversified in what we do, and we are present in all segments. The gas we deliver to our customers is essentially the same as our competitors, and we therefore have to find other means of differentiating ourselves. Our technological know-how and our vast understanding of the different applications of the product allows us to give full support to our customers in all of their processes.”
Another important factor in the company’s success is the efficiency of its operations. Jan highlights: “We have a very successful history in supply chain development, and our ability to run this supply chain as effectively as we have been doing is a testament to that. We are always looking at new ways of developing this area of our business to further enhance the experience for our customers, saving time and reducing costs for them where possible.”
The company is also careful when selecting its own suppliers, according to Jan: “In our industry, the most important qualities we look for when working with partners is safety and reliability, followed by cost and innovation. We always look for customers with whom we can engage in continuous improvement processes without making any compromise upon safety. If a supplier is not up to standard with regards to its health and safety policies then it must address this before it wishes to work with us.”
AGA is currently investing in a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, in Sweden, which will be the first in the Baltic Sea area when finished. Scheduled for completion in spring 2011, introducing LNG to the Swedish industrial and marine markets will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, particles and CO2 when replacing both heating oils, marine fuels and LPG with LNG as fuel.
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Standing at 36.6 metres in height, and 37.5 metres wide, this storage facility will be able to hold up to 20,000 cubic metres or some 9300 tonnes of LNG. This investment has come in spite of the difficult market situation created by the recession – and, as Jan admits, AGA has not been completely immune from its effects: “Like all companies in tough times, we have been going through a period of restructuring, in order to make our processes leaner and more efficient. This has been commonplace both within AGA itself and under the Linde Group umbrella as well. In order to remain successful throughout this turbulent time, we have had to make sure that we are really utilising the benefits of our mother company in order to define the best means of working in a more standardised way across the globe.”
Jan still seems positive about the future prospects for AGA, as he concludes: “Consolidation and improvement of internal efficiency are the most important areas of development for us at the moment, but this does not mean that we aren’t looking for new contracts or projects all the time. Last year was the worst recession any of us have seen in the industry during recent decades, and so the current goal, like many others at the moment, is to secure our cash flow before expanding our operations. New projects such as our LNG gas terminal in Sweden will continue to emerge as long as we ensure that our future growth is sustainable.”
AGA
Employees 1700
Products Gases and related application technology, process know-how, services and associated equipment and hardware
The company benefits from a wealth of expertise and experience in the cryogenic field, having been founded in 1904 by Gustaf Dalén, a Swedish Nobel laureate. Initially, AGA specialised in acetylene gas for railway lighting, before gradually diversifying to cover the whole gas sector by the late 1960s. Today, AGA employs around 1700 people in the Nordic and Baltic countries and its service portfolio has expanded to include solutions for mainstream industries, such as cleaning of wastewater, chemical recovery, fluid temperature control, cryogenic deflashing, flame straightening and vulcanising.
President of AGA Jan Bäckvall elaborates on some of the company’s key strengths: “We are rather diversified in what we do, and we are present in all segments. The gas we deliver to our customers is essentially the same as our competitors, and we therefore have to find other means of differentiating ourselves. Our technological know-how and our vast understanding of the different applications of the product allows us to give full support to our customers in all of their processes.”
Another important factor in the company’s success is the efficiency of its operations. Jan highlights: “We have a very successful history in supply chain development, and our ability to run this supply chain as effectively as we have been doing is a testament to that. We are always looking at new ways of developing this area of our business to further enhance the experience for our customers, saving time and reducing costs for them where possible.”
The company is also careful when selecting its own suppliers, according to Jan: “In our industry, the most important qualities we look for when working with partners is safety and reliability, followed by cost and innovation. We always look for customers with whom we can engage in continuous improvement processes without making any compromise upon safety. If a supplier is not up to standard with regards to its health and safety policies then it must address this before it wishes to work with us.”
AGA is currently investing in a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, in Sweden, which will be the first in the Baltic Sea area when finished. Scheduled for completion in spring 2011, introducing LNG to the Swedish industrial and marine markets will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, particles and CO2 when replacing both heating oils, marine fuels and LPG with LNG as fuel.
')";>
Standing at 36.6 metres in height, and 37.5 metres wide, this storage facility will be able to hold up to 20,000 cubic metres or some 9300 tonnes of LNG. This investment has come in spite of the difficult market situation created by the recession – and, as Jan admits, AGA has not been completely immune from its effects: “Like all companies in tough times, we have been going through a period of restructuring, in order to make our processes leaner and more efficient. This has been commonplace both within AGA itself and under the Linde Group umbrella as well. In order to remain successful throughout this turbulent time, we have had to make sure that we are really utilising the benefits of our mother company in order to define the best means of working in a more standardised way across the globe.”
Jan still seems positive about the future prospects for AGA, as he concludes: “Consolidation and improvement of internal efficiency are the most important areas of development for us at the moment, but this does not mean that we aren’t looking for new contracts or projects all the time. Last year was the worst recession any of us have seen in the industry during recent decades, and so the current goal, like many others at the moment, is to secure our cash flow before expanding our operations. New projects such as our LNG gas terminal in Sweden will continue to emerge as long as we ensure that our future growth is sustainable.”
AGA
Employees 1700
Products Gases and related application technology, process know-how, services and associated equipment and hardware