After enjoying annual growth rates above 20% since 2009 and becoming part of the American sealing solutions group Utex Industries in 2011, Arefco Special Products is looking to boost its turnover from £6 million to £20 million by the end of 2020.

A key element in the company’s growth strategy is the recent installation at its UK manufacturing base in Ashington, Northumberland, of two new Romi machines — a
giant C-1600-H CNC lathe and a GL-350B sub-spindle CNC lathe (both with live tools and a C axis).

These are the first machines of their type in Europe; the GL-350B only made its UK debut at the MACH exhibition in April.

Arefco has dealt with Sandretto for over 28 years, so when Romi acquired Sandretto and then added the machine tool division, operations director Albert Duhrin took notice: “We know that Romi-Sandretto provides great equipment, support and service; we have eight of their plastic injection moulding systems and one of their smaller CNC lathes.

When Romi (www.romi.com) then mentioned their full range of CNC machines to us, we could see a real market opportunity, as we had already identified demand for the capability to machine large-diameter components for the oil and gas industry.”

Arefco specialises in the manufacture of sealing solutions in elastomer, plastic and metal; its signature products include rubber-to-metal bonded systems. In addition to the oil and gas sector, it serves the marine engineering, renewable energy, mass transit, aerospace and defence, and chemical processing sectors.

The new Romi machines will handle a wide range of metals, including cast steel, hardened steel, high-carbon filled steel, stainless steel, copper, brass and mesh. Arefco can now machine metal components up to 1.6m in diameter x 5m between centres, with a maximum weight of 22 tonnes.