Q & A With Jens Wulff On NEA’s Growing African Portfolio

By Ajong Mbapndah L*

As Africa grapples with the complex balance of challenges and opportunities in its energy sector, theNEUMAN & ESSER GROUP (NEA), has established itself as one of the most dependable partners in helping the continent optimize its potential from an engineering and technological standpoint.

In a Q and A with PAV, Jens Wulff. the Managing Director of the plant engineering company NEUMAN & ESSER DEUTSCHLAND, says the company will not relent on its unique approach of investing in the development of local content, capabilities and knowledge.

With a footprint in some 14 countries and counting, Jens Wulff hopes that there could be more political stability in some countries so NEA could further deepen its contribution to the development of Africa

Can you shed light on the trainings you have had in Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, Egypt and others?

NEUMAN & ESSER GROUP (NEA) strongly believes in the training and continuous know-how transfer to our partners and customers. Because of this, we have several training platforms that we offer.

The trainings you have in mind are those which we did just last year in Africa. Also, here we speak about two different scopes and scenarios. Firstly, we do organize regularly so called “Training on the Road” sessions. These are the events, where we invite several end-users, engineering companies and other business partners for a 1-day training course. We inform about new trends, products and technologies and also combine this with practical examples and applications.

Another event we did was the organization of 2-days training under the organizational umbrella of ARDA (African Refineries and Distributors Association). This training was done in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and participants registered from all over the Africa. We had over 30 participants from around 8 different countries. We discussed the basic designs of reciprocating compressors and their components, but also the proper applications as well as revamping opportunities.

On top of these two types, we regularly conduct trainings in our Training center in Germany and also provide individual trainings directly at our customers’ sites. We also see quite an appetite for online training with customers focused on one particular topic, where we go more into the details and focus on customer demands.

May what impact do you think this trainings can have on the fortunes of the companies you have worked with?

We provide our customers not simply with the product. Reciprocating compression is a sophisticated and critical technology. It is very often a key component of the process, and its reliable and efficient operation is crucial for the final output of production. Moreover, the correct operation and maintenance can be a key benefit also to the costs optimization including energy efficiency.

This is why it is very important to make sure that our customers and their technical teams understand not only the way to properly operate and maintain the equipment. It is equally important that they understand the design, as this leads to the awareness of functionality and thus avoids incorrect use.

Moreover, customers are also learning new technologies and solutions during our trainings, and we can look into possible improvements of their equipment. Therefore, many of our customers value our training sessions as a kind of technical consultancy.

There are companies out there who need training but scared of the cost, how affordable are the trainings?

I understand this reservation. We all are living in limited and optimized budgets. However, I believe that the money spent on the training is money well spent as it reflects directly in the way of proper use of the equipment which is a very high investment in itself.

And our “Training on the Road” is free of any cost, you need just to sign up and join one of the sessions.

Another alternative is to organize practical focused online training. Usually, it works the way that a customer contacts us and asks if we could prepare such training focused on particular components or solutions. It depends on the complexity, but very often, we provide such training for free. This can be discussed individually.

However, I need to repeat again, there is never lost money, which you would invest to the training of your people. This is my personal belief.

Beyond the trainings, what other unique opportunities and products does NEA have available to enhance the African Energy sector?

Our focus and solutions for the Energy sector is determined by our diverse product portfolio. We are experts with almost 200 years’ experience producing reciprocating compressors and have recently expanded our product range with electrolyzers for hydrogen generation.

This means we have quite large applications in the traditional Oil & Gas but are also focusing on enabling Energy Transition. We do continuously develop and improve our products. But thinking about Africa specifically, it comes to my mind to maybe highlight two topics.

We have developed and provided our own solution for the online monitoring of complex processes and applications called XPLORE. Knowing the distances in Africa as well as very often remote applications of our equipment or its high criticality, I believe it is essential to have a good understanding of the performance. You can make your equipment “transparent” with the online monitoring; you can recognize exceptional behavior or wear before any damages or troubles. Moreover, you can also give us access to monitor, and we can provide you with our specialized group of engineers regular reports and monitoring from our side.

The second solution we offer, is the “Flare Gas Utilization” program we have. Partnering with another German company SPG Steiner, we are offering the complete solution of flare gas utilization. We offer technical consultancies to tailor the design of process and technology of utilization of this gas towards LNG, CNG, LPG or just gas-to-power, as per the business plan of our customers. We can design and produce all equipment and install it directly on-site. This we see as a way of converting the flare to the business opportunity.

In terms of the big energy events across the continent, which are some of the ones that potential clients can catch NEA at?

These days there are probably too many events across Africa. We are not able to participate in all of them, as much as we would like.

We regularly participate in the ARDA Week and the Africa Energy Week in Cape Town. I recognize those events as the Global Africa drivers.

Last year, we participated in the Global Africa Hydrogen Meeting in Windhoek, and we will return there this year too. Moreover, as the Mozambique Gas and Energy Summit as well as MSGBC did not happen last year, we will plan to take part in those as well.

You are one now amongst the most well-traveled and connected energy actors across the continent today, what are some of the fascinating things do you see and what are some areas you would like to see improvements on to get the attention of NEA?

Thank you very much for complimenting me. Yes, I do travel across Africa as much as I can. I do think that only the continuous market presence gives you a chance to really understand the market and I am very happy that my company – NEUMAN & ESSER shares this belief.

I really appreciate the growth especially at the gas segment. There are many things happening and more to come. But what makes me really happy to see in Africa is the start of development of “intra-Africa” projects. I see it as essential for the economic growth of the continent. It does not seem right that a big amount of the oil or gas production is mainly for the overseas use and African countries are than importing final products. What I would appreciate to see more is still a more sustainable development of the downstream segment, being refinery or petrochemical, and also fertilizers production should come soon. This would bring the value added to the continent, create jobs for a larger number of people and this would increase the standard of living.

We are at the beginning of this path, but I can see that things are moving in the right direction and that makes me optimistic about the future.

Any last word to energy actors and potential partners in Africa on the merits of counting on NEA?

We have done quite a lot during the last 4 years. We are covering with our local footprint already 14 countries and are generally very active. We have always adapted quickly to change and challenges and we always aim to develop local capabilities and knowledge.

In the case of the energy sector, as many of us. I am hoping for more political stability in some of the countries that could help to develop the continent of Africa further. Any new developments or projects, not only in the energy sector, cannot be developed nor financed in an unstable environment.

*Culled From May Issue of PAV Magazine