When you do business with MAKEEN Gas Equipment, you are not just gaining access to the knowledge and products of your local office. You are supported by a global team of gas experts, each with years of experience in the industry. As a result, there is always someone at your disposal who can find the right solutions for you – no matter what challenge you are facing.
In this series, we want to introduce you to the different parts of MAKEEN Gas Equipment’s global team and what they bring to the table. This is the second part of the series, where we meet a department that reaches across both sides of the Atlantic: MAKEEN Gas Equipment Portugal.
Competences
MAKEEN Gas Equipment Portugal (MGE PT) is as a key player within our global network and is one of the founding entities with a long history of supplying high-quality LPG equipment to customers in Portugal and abroad. In particular, MGE PT offers specialised competences in pump skids, compressor skids, and firefighting system skids along with a wide stock of spare parts to keep their customers’ plants running day and night.
Our Portuguese division prides itself on their ability to maintain a high level of availability of materials and parts for customers. One way they achieve this is by allowing a customer to have a quantity of parts in the MGE PT warehouse that already belongs to them – to do storage for customers, so to speak. An advantage of this is that when parts need to be certified before installation in a plant, our Portuguese team can contact the correct authorities immediately and have the parts ready for installation in a much shorter time.
The team at MGE PT consists of 3 people handling sales, 2 responsible for logistics, and 1 in management. Key functions such as HR and finance and accounting are shared with the sister company of MAKEEN Energy Portugal, which MGE PT shares a building with. MGE PT also share 2 people with the MAKEEN Energy group to support other entities of MAKEEN Gas Equipment in business development as well as ERP software implementation.
Products
Aside from their core offering of pump, compressor, and firefighting systems, and the spare parts to match, MGE PT also deals in corrosion-free plastic LPG piping, primarily for the Portuguese market, and electrofusion fittings in polyethylene for the Bolivian market. And recently, our Portuguese team has also implemented a strategy to supply firefighting foam mixer skids to customers in Africa.
As part of the global MAKEEN Gas Equipment network of warehouses, MGE PT is able to supply equipment for most industrial gas types and pair it with advice about everything from sizing and safety to local standards, suitability, and certifications. The team also works hard to make sure they are ready to meet demand for emerging energy sources such as DME (dimethyl ether) and cryogenics, both of which they expect more inquiries about in the coming years.
Customers
The majority of MGE PT’s customer base consists of LPG fillers, distributors, and LPG tank manufacturers. Our Portuguese office supports a lot of MAKEEN Energy’s Facility Service contracts, in which MAKEEN Energy handles all service and maintenance of a customer’s plant – and MGE PT supplies all the spare parts needed to keep the equipment running.
We put a lot of emphasis on showing our customers the advantage of using recommended service and repair kits that contain the original spare parts from the manufacturers. The advantage for them is that we can get them the best warranties for their equipment and give them security. We also help out with their spare parts stock, to identify the critical must-have parts. All in all, we do everything we can to give our customers peace of mind regarding the equipment we supply.
Market Coverage
From the office in Porto, Portugal, MGE PT covers markets on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, from Chile in the West to Kuwait in the East. A large portion of their customers are in South America – particularly in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia – as well as an increasing number in Africa.
Managing such a large market span from Portugal can of course create some practical concerns, but luckily, the team at MGE PT prides itself on its flexibility and ability to adapt to customers’ time schedules. For example, the team is experienced in navigating around time zone differences of sometimes 6 hours, as is the case with customers in Chile, and are also highly proficient in Spanish.
