A&E Group Opens Global Headquarters, Manufacturing and Training Facility in Malaysia
05 February 2010
A&E Group, manufacturer of the unique Alocit and Enviropeel anti-corrosion coating systems, has launched its integrated global headquarters, manufacturing and training facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Officiating at the event was Dato' Mukhriz Tun Mahathir, Malaysian deputy minister of international trade and industry, accompanied by Mazlan Abd Majid, chairman of the A&E Group and Arthur Haycox, the group's chief executive officer.
According to the chairman, "the setting up of the A&E global headquarters will enable us to centralise communications with our respective regional centres as well as provide value-added service to our clients and stakeholders. With A&E's manufacturing and product development facilities all located in the same building, this new office will also function as a teaching academy and research centre."
In his speech at the launch, the deputy minister revealed that corrosion costs were globally estimated to be between 4%-6% of GDP or approximately $1.6 trillion lost every year to the world's economy. 4% of the Malaysian economy was equivalent to the entire Malaysian healthcare budget for 2008.
He went on to elaborate that successful businesses can use technology to maximise finite resources and should find new ways to minimise impact on the environment. The A&E Group has taken these challenges and turned them into a successful business, offering corrosion solutions and an ability to protect infrastructure with a state-of-the-art, environmental-friendly approach that has won recognition from a blue-chip client list, including major mining corporations, oil and gas producers and national utilities, both in Malaysia and around the world.
The Enviropeel system was developed commercially by Malaysian and UK engineers and entrepreneurs, who recognised the system's ability to prevent corrosion and the value of its impeccable environmental credentials: using a material that was fully recyclable, free from solvents and toxins. In setting up the A&E Group, they were able to provide the support and development that the system needed and its Malaysian-based R&D, manufacturing and administration facilities soon began to show the system's potential with a number of world firsts:
- Enviropeel is the first sprayable corrosion-inhibiting thermoplastic system to be deployed on offshore platforms
- It is the first system in the world to use sprayable thermoplastic polymers for long-term corrosion protection
- It is the first system of its kind to win approval from some of the world's largest corporations
- It is the first system ever to provide custom-built sprayable thermoplastic units to the shipping industry for corrosion protection on LPG carriers
The A&E Group has a track record of successful applications in some of corrosion's most problematic areas, with new solutions to a range of age-old problems. The group's philosophy is to provide new levels of performance while at the same time reducing waste and avoiding the use of harmful solvents and toxins. These environmentally-friendly characteristics, their ease of use and their durability in service are key factors in winning acceptance from the world's most demanding specifiers.
