In July last year ACTOM Turbo Machines signed an exclusive channel partnership agreement with US-based Rotating Machinery Services (RMS) to sell and support Allis-Chalmers compressors in Southern Africa.
There is a substantial userbase of this product in the region.
Within only a month of the agreement being signed ACTOM Turbo received its first order, which came from a pulp mill in KwaZulu-Natal where an Allis-Chalmers single stage overhang compressor that had long been in use failed while in operation. The compressor operates in the mill’s sulphur plant.
After taking delivery of the rotor and impeller of the compressor at its Sasolburg workshop, ACTOM Turbo found upon investigation that the rotor journals had become worn after long use.
“We recommended to the client that the shaft be completely repaired, involving micro-welding of the entire shaft to build it up above spec and subsequently have it machined to spec to make it as good as new. This was agreed to,” said Jurie Erasmus, ACTOM Turbo’s Projects & Business Development Manager, who is also the Channel Partner Manager for RMS in South Africa. The repair work was completed in November last year.
Jurie pointed out that ACTOM Turbo’s exclusive channel partnership agreement with RMS was finalised only a short while after RMS had purchased the intellectual property of Allis-Charmers compressors from their former owner.
“In terms of the agreement we have the exclusive right to sell, repair, install and maintain them in this market under licence to RMS,” he said.
