Brian: Oil and gas prices are higher than ever before.
This trend is great for Oklahoma and many in the oil and gas equipment
industry are beginning to look beyond state lines to find new opportunities in
foreign markets.
Brian: Tulsa based company, Midwestern Manufacturing, has grown
from 50 employees to 130 in little over three years, and says its
success is due not only from the recent oil boom, but also its aggressive
approach to international markets, president and co-owner Tom Golden.
Tom Golden: Our sales have increased probably by 500 or more percent, and half
of that is going overseas outside of the United States.
Brian: Midwestern focuses on a nitch-market of converting tractors and
bulldozers into side-boom, pipe layers; a conversion that saves the customer
millions of dollars, and is in high demand outside of the U S.
Golden: We all tend to focus on our own neighborhoods and our own
schools and our own mall; but actually it's a big world out there and with
the Internet and the capabilities of wire transfers, and ocean
freight the way it is, it's a very big market
that no one should overlook.
Brian: But they may not have to look too far to find great opportunities.
Midwestern utilized the Oklahoma Department of Commerce to get their
foot in the door with the Mexican market;
sales coordinator, J C Guettsche.
J C Guettsche: They helped us get into some customer contacts, in Mexico, to
further reach our products.
Brian: Midwestern was one of many companies who attended the Marginal
Wells Conference, in Oklahoma City, where trade representative, Luis
Doménech, spoke about the Mexican market.
Luis Doménech: What we do is, we learn a little bit about their products.
We learn about the types of distributors that they want to find in Mexico.
And then we go back to Mexico.
We do some research.
We interview Mexican companies and try to find the best possible
representatives for the Oklahoma companies.
Brian: The government-owned corporation, Pemex,
currently runs the 98 billion dollar Mexican oil market and plans to invest
400 billion dollars over the next 4 years.
Doménech: Pemex is the only company allowed to extract oil in Mexico.
However, the opening process of the Mexican oil
and gas sector is kind of beginning.
Brian: Pemex now works with sub contractors allowing for multiple
sources and customers for Oklahoma businesses to sell to, especially since
reserves are beginning to decline.
Doménech: We only have 10 years of petroleum reserves left.
So we need to do serious exploration activities to find additional resources
and begin extracting oil from those new fields, because the old fields
that we have are declining very, very fast.
Brian: Meaning more opportunity for Oklahoma companies to tap into.