Face to face: Making A regional impact

Rob Meek, CEO of Impact solutions

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Rob Meek, chief executive officer of Impact Solutions, explains that professional manpower is needed in order to get the best out of your technology.

What does your company provide to petrochemicals producers in the region?
We offer three main types of service. The first is manufacturing optimisation to increase efficiencies to world-class standards.

We are Europe-based, with over 30 years success across the petrochemicals and plastics industries. We help emerging industries, such as the petrochemicals and polymers sectors in the Middle East to operate at lower production costs and maximise profitability.

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We achieve this by managing process improvement projects and also by training people to improve their individual contribution towards team objectives. In the UK, we are very rigorous and vigilant with quality and we are now bringing this to the Middle East.

What are your main offerings?
While we don’t actually offer the technologies themselves, what we do provide is the expertise to fully utilise existing technology. Since the Middle East invests billions of dollars in these technologies, to get the return you expect, you must fully utilise your assets.

We provide the expertise to ensure that people are trained to run these technologies at world-class standards.

What challenges are your operations facing in the region?
Dealing with the rapid expansion here and the range of technologies that are in operation, so that we can identify with those technologies fast in order to improve quality standards. We operate across the globe with a diverse range of people and abilities.

We work across both the petrochemicals and plastics industry to align their needs. This for us is a big challenge because the big investments so far have been made in the upstream sector. Few countries are investing in downstream.

For example, the conversion of plastic materials will catch up, so we are working on different models to use in Europe and the US.

Describe your company’s operations in the Middle East region?
We are heavily involved in Saudi Arabia and have been working in the Kingdom for the last four years. We have also just started our operations in Oman and in Bahrain. In addition, we are looking to expand in Kuwait, Qatar and North Africa.

Generally, we have a strong focus on the Middle East and North America. In the coming years, we will expand our model here in the Middle East and make an investment in the region through an office or a facility here, as we expand.

Who are your local clients?
Our major clients include TASNEE Petrochemicals company from Saudi Arabia, Oman PP and a number of other regional companies, some of which prefer to not to be mentioned.

What’s your downstream pedigree?
We started six years ago as a spin-off from BP Chemicals. My colleagues and I are very experienced in blue chip organisations. I spent 25 years in different parts of the world working for BP in the UK, China, USA, and many other parts of the globe.

Many of my colleagues are the same as we all have backgrounds involving many big companies. The model in Europe is changing and the big oil and gas companies are moving to the Middle East and Asia.

So we have been preparing to set this business up for the last six years, mainly in the UK, on big refinery and petrochemical sites.

We still operate there and continue to grow. We’ve been in the petrochemicals and plastics businesses for the best part of 30 years and in many cases a lot of these products are now being made in the Middle East.In terms of expertise, we developed the yellow gas pipelines in my country in 1979, so we know the product and the market.

Even though we are not a big company and employ 20 staff, we have a lot of experience and are very specialized. Personally, I am an engineer by trade, while my other colleagues all have doctorates in their specialist fields.