Tom Fink
Claremore — A New Mexico-based company hopes its environmentally beneficial breakthrough technologies will spur dynamic growth and bring up to 175 new jobs to its south Claremore manufacturing plant over the next five years.
Engineered Concepts selected Claremore as a manufacturing base in late 2007, after it picked up a 15,000-square-foot facility, formerly the site of Process Pipe Fabricators.
Renaming the operation “Heath Technology LLC,” co-founder Gary Heath said Engineered Concepts plans to invest up to $3 million in new equipment and infrastructure for producing its VRSA products in Claremore.
The firm is expecting to grow from 13 to 175 employees over the next five years, Heath estimated.
Heath Technologies is currently working with the Claremore Industrial and Economic Development Authority to pursue additional resources for company growth.
“I’ve been very pleased to be involved with this project,” said CIEDA Executive Director Tim Hight. “CIEDA looking forward to the development of the Heath facility and the creation of future jobs in green manufacturing and technologies that will be new to Claremore.”
Gary Heath’s brother and Heath Technology co-founder Rodney Heath said he was “very impressed” with the attitude and willingness to help of the Claremore Economic Development Authority, as well as other state and private organizations, all of whom have made Engineered Concepts’ move to Claremore a comfortable one.
Engineered Concepts, LLC of Farmington, N.M., has developed an alternative vapor recovery system to recover vapors that flash from natural gas liquids and end the need for oil and gas flare systems that burn valuable energy and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Designed for the colder Rocky Mountain regions, which have seen drilling increases over the past decade from Tulsa-based Williams, Oklahoma City’s Devon Energy and other companies, Engineered Concepts principals Gary and Rodney Heath said their systems have charted several successes in tests with the Canadian firm EnCana.
With energy companies seeking environmentally friendly alternatives to releasing or burning off liquid hydrocarbon vapors, the Heaths expect their new vapor recovery products, dehydrators and other lines to find opportunities not just with firms working those high-altitude regions, but across the entire energy sector.
With an existing concrete foundation and structural frame ready for build-out and completion, Heath said the Claremore site will provide for up to 6,000 square feet of additional space.
With this year’s dramatic commodities price swings and election debates focusing the national attention on U.S. energy security and drilling efforts, Gary Heath expects energy companies may be primed to experiment more in new energy saving, environmental technologies.
“It’s moving better than I thought it would,” he said of the VRSA system, which can cost $100,000 or more. “We’re hoping that the VRSA really catches fire next year. It’s a win-win for everybody.”
