Chemical Technology Oct 2015

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Acquisition could bring new pumps to market
Customers in mining, industry and pet-
rochemicals are likely to benefit from
increased competition in the South African
pump market resulting from the acquisi-
tion in June 2015 by WPIL of Italian pump
company Gruppo Aturia. WPIL is the hold-
ing company of local manufacturers APE
Pumps and Mather+Platt, both well known
in the South African and southern African
pump markets.
Gruppo Aturia has as its core product a
range of horizontal split-case pumps already
covered by Mather+Platt at low duties, and
by APE Pumps at the high-volume end of
the market.
However, there are other product ranges
not covered by the South African compa-
nies, including submersible vertical turbine
pumps and sealless magnetic drive pumps.
Gruppo Aturia also manufactures spe-
cific models of horizontal and vertical
multistage pumps that have the potential
to plug gaps in the local ranges.
The WPIL acquisition includes subsid-
iary companies of Gruppo Aturia. Rutschi
Fluid (Switzerland) and Pompes Rutschi
(France) focus on nuclear and petrochemi-
cal applications, potentially providing new
API 685 products for local petrochemical
applications.
“We are excited about the potential for
new products offered by this acquisition,
and will certainly make as many of these
pumps as possible available to local cus-
tomers,” said a spokesman for the WPIL.
“We are also investigating the in-
troduction of an asset management
product that will allow customers to offload
responsibility for pump reliability and up-
time onto us.
An announcement on the availability of
new products, including asset management,
would be made soon, the spokesman said.
For more information tel Dave Johnson
on +27 11 824 4810
API 685