Making a difference
Soltex has been adding value for its clients through its dynamic and innovative approach to solutions in oil field services, writes Visvas Paul D Karra

Soltex began its journey in 1997 in Washington. It’s focus initially was network security, document imaging and staffing services. Yasseen Al Noumani, founder of Soltex felt that the company had even greater potential. Upon returning to his native country, Oman, Yasseen met with Adil Al Jamry. Together, the idea of a “Dream Team” was born. A concept that has allowed Soltex to transcend the traditional idea of company structure. A team of four partners, each with the same values, ideas, standards and vision. These individuals are the heart of Soltex today, each sharing the dream and the future possibilities. A heart that is nourished by the contributions from each and every member of the Soltex greater family, its staff.

The Oil field Services Division of Soltex has been playing a critical role as a service provider in the oil and gas sector in Oman since early 2007 when it was awarded its first contract from Halliburton for well testing and sand management system. Since then Soltex has never looked back and today its order book is full with contracts worth millions of dollars. Soltex offers a wide range of highly complex and technical oil field services including complete well test packages, supply of choke manifolds, SSVs, instrumentations, valves, etc along with qualified personnel to operate the equipment.

Officials of Soltex told OER that the primary goal is to continue to provide superior tools and services of the highest quality by meeting or exceeding customers expectations by not compromising on the quality of the tools or services supplied to the oil and gas industry. The services provided by Soltex assume importance in the light of the fact that PDO and the other operators all have resorted to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to produce oil in the Sultanate.

Professionally managed
Using Soltex services like water injection, cleaning up of the wells, testing the wells and other methods used in EOR operations, the main clients like PDO are able to increase their productivity levels. As a young and dynamic company, Soltex is being managed by four highly professional individuals who have together between them vast experience in the oil and gas sector. Abdullah Al Ismaily, Adil Jamry, Tariq Al Barwani and Yasseen Al Noumani. “We are solution providers and therefore we are familiar with the problems faced by our clients. We are able to provide tailor-made solutions to our clients. We don’t wait for our clients to come to us but we go to them. This way we are able to give higher value to our clients and it has enabled us to grow very fast,” says Barwani. After securing the first job from Halliburton in early 2007, Soltex has been awarded with well testing, SMS and water frac and disposal contracts with an initial value of $20mn till 2010.

Soltex has always strived to offer its expertise in providing core solutions to its customers. Soltex has been working closely with local companies outsourcing them as sub-contracts. For example, a large part of the Soltex operational profile includes moving equipment from one oil field to another. Instead of diversifying its resources to procuring logistics support, the management of Soltex decided to sub-contract this part of the work to local companies. This way the company has been able to focus its energy on serving its niche clients through its core expertise while through its subcontracts it was able to generate hundreds of jobs for the local population in the area where it was working, points out Abdullah. “Honesty is our tenet, quality is our life, costumer satisfaction is our promise,” says Abdullah using it as his guiding motto.

Be it in Al Noor, Qarn Alam, Fahud, Nimr, wherever the oil bases are located, Soltex was able to add value to the local community by providing indirect jobs to the people of that place be it through transportation, manpower employment, equipment rentals and vehicle leasing.

One of the reasons Soltex could serve its clients has been by being able to adapt to change. Because, the oil and gas sector is constantly dependent upon innovative techniques and technologies, Soltex always ensures that it stays on top of the game by embracing the changes both in the market as well as technologies. The oil services market has become very aggressive but Soltex was able to stand on its own with a simple principle of gathering vast knowledge of client requirements. Since then, the company has just completed one year of its operations some months ago this year but its growth cycle has been very high.

Without mentioning any actual figures, Barwani disclosed that Soltex has grown exponentially and was able to triple its asset value. The company now has multiple units that provide well testing, SMS, Pumping and Fracturing services, as well as transmitting live data and information to the client. The other intangible assets for the company have been other factors like zero loss time incidents (LTI) and zero non-productive time. In order to maximise the efficiency of its services and quality, Soltex is also in the process of obtaining an ISO certification for its integrated management system (IMS) to ensure the QHSE of the company is maintained to the highest standard. Adil says that as a company they believe in the Kaizen principle of quality review wherein the company/ individual looks back at its/his work, reviews the pros and cons and archives this information so that it is available for future reference. No one or nothing is perfect in this world, but a perfect system is one that continuously strives to achieve the unattainable state pf perfection. In this regard, Soltex has relied on its ability to provide quality services to its clients by providing cutting-edge solutions through competent means.

“None of this would have been attainable without the grace of God, the contribution of the team, and the support of many other people and organisations, who we consider to be our partners on this odyssey,” says Yasseen.With such commitment, we can only say that the future is indeed looking bright for Soltex. Soltex is changing obstacles into opportunities.

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