New group delivers high-efficiency oil-free centrifugal chillers worldwide
LINDAU, Germany; MONTREAL, Canada; MELBOURNE, Australia, Jan. 23, 2006 — Formation of a major new global chiller engineering and manufacturing group was jointly announced today by Dr Martin Altenbokum, CEO of Axima Refrigeration GmbH of Lindau, Germany and Roger Richmond-Smith, founding Turbocor CEO and now Chairman and CEO of Smardt Inc., of Montreal, Canada and Boronia Technologies Pty Ltd (PowerPax) of Melbourne, Australia.
"The Turbocor oil-free compressor technology is an important element of Axima Refrigeration’s know-how surrounding industrial cooling systems and solutions," said Dr. Altenbokum, "and together with Smardt and PowerPax we clearly have more engineering and field experience with oil-free chillers than anyone else in the world. We mean to consolidate and reinforce that lead as one of the world’s pre-eminent chiller groups.
"The partnership with Smardt in North America and with PowerPax in the West Pacific means we can now serve and support our major international customers with the same standards and the same energy efficiencies and the same reliability they insist on in Europe.
"Companies like Sears, Deutsche Bank, Ford Motor and Nestle are demanding lowest lifetime operating costs against a background of high energy costs and deepening concern for the environment and climate change," said Mr Richmond-Smith. "Our new group aims to make sure they can now get the best value result from us worldwide."
Axima Refrigeration’s experience with an extended European customer base confirms that the same trend can be observed in the European marketplace, where cost pressure is the number one challenge.
The revolutionary oil-free compressor technology was pioneered in Australia, then developed in Canada by Turbocor Inc, led for its first ten years by Roger Richmond-Smith as President and CEO. "Our PowerPax and Smardt units include many key members of the original Turbocor team," said Richmond-Smith, "and not surprisingly, our group’s oil-free centrifugal chillers deliver the best efficiencies and the lowest lifetime operating costs in the industry."
The Axima unit, the largest-volume Turbocor user so far, draws on a Swiss-German Sulzer engineering heritage that goes back to 1878. Today Axima Refrigeration is owned by SUEZ, one of the leading international industrial and services groups. Axima’s centrifugal chillers drive the largest chilled-water plants in Europe, and have set the industrial refrigeration standards by which all others are judged.
The new group will continue to use the Axima, Smardt and PowerPax brands, and the group will be used for joint engineering development and to exploit procurement opportunities and economies of scale. Some development facilities will also be shared.
"The group function enables us to shorten time to market for new chillers and to fully exploit our new developments in controls, monitoring and heat exchanger design," said Dr Altenbokum, "which all means lower operating costs for our end user customer – in water cooled chillers from 60TR to 900TR and air cooled chillers from 60TR up to 300TR and onwards."
(The new group can be seen on stand 2053 at AHR Expo.)
For further information:
Dr Martin Altenbokum,
Axima Refrigeration GmbH
Tel: +49 172 282 5787
Email:
Roger Richmond-Smith
Smardt Inc. and Boronia Technologies Pty Ltd ("PowerPax")
Tel: +1 514 577 7371
Email:
