Article by Rhett Morgan for the Tulsa World
[Alfa Laval] officials announced that they plan to create about 100 jobs by building and investing at least $15 million in new facilities, said Michael Tyden, executive vice president and head of operations.
The new factory, which is part of phase one, is expected to be completed by late 2018, said Seifi Hasanali, the company’s strategic project manager.
Gov. Mary Fallin “is phenomenal when she works with these companies,” said Wes Smithwick, president and CEO of the Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce. “We have an economic development governor. She gets it. She relates to people.”
Founded in 1883, Alfa Laval has about 16,500 employees worldwide, roughly 1,700 in the United States and 180 at the current Broken Arrow facility.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest in investing in the United States from foreign countries, and they are looking in Oklahoma, which is big news,” Fallin said. “I think it speaks well that we are diversifying our economy, that we’re able to attract big, international companies to our state.”
Fallin added, “The Tulsa area, and Broken Arrow in particular, has the reputation of being the heat-exchanger area of manufacturing. … It will develop a supply chain of other companies, I hope, that will come along and join with this type of industry in our state.”
The company’s project will include an update to its existing 150,000-square-foot facility.
“The knowledge pool we have here, especially in the heat-exchanger business, is a big positive,” Hasanali said.
Headquartered in Lund, Sweden, Alfa Laval is a leading global provider of specialized products and engineering solutions, focused in the areas of heat transfer, separation and fluid handling.
In 2014, Alfa Laval acquired Broken Arrow-based ACE Air Cooled Exchangers LLC, which was established in 1964.
