Irish storage supplier Suretank is to create 80 jobs at its Louth-based facilities by the end of the year.
The company, which supplies specialised storage equipment to pharma, marine and energy companies, expects the expanded headcount to help drive revenues up from €50 million to €75 million by year-end.
The company was founded in 1995, and for more than 20 years at least 90 per cent of its business was focused on providing tanks needed by the offshore oil and gas industry for storing chemicals, drilling mud and material marked for disposal.
Since 2016, spurred by a global crash in oil and gas prices, the group has diversified its operations, and is now servicing a wider pool of industries with customers operating in offshore wind and renewables, data centres, pharma, recycling and electricity grids.
The new jobs, which will bring the company’s headcount to more than 300, will be in sales and marketing, engineering, quality assurance, operations, and finance.
Suretank, which has operations in 23 countries across five continents, said the expanded team will provide the resources necessary to service new industries and increase capacity.
The new roles will be based in its Dunleer headquarters, as well as its manufacturing facilities, all of which are in Co Louth. The facilities enable Suretank to build products entirely off-site before shipping and retrofitting them.
Suretank managing director Martin Winters said the group has an in-house team that includes more than 100 engineers, welders and electricians.
“We will now continue to grow our team,” he said. “Our further investment in Louth will help us to meet customer demand, while also preparing for the rapid growth in operations and revenues that lies ahead.”
Suretank was founded by engineer Patrick Joy who got the idea for the business while working with CPV, which made tanks for transporting chemicals. A colleague Neil Lund also invested in the venture, which had £150,000 Irish punts seed capital when it began. Early backers included Newry, Co Down, bookmaker Pat O’Hare.
Mr Joy sold a 67.7 per cent stake in the company to Norwegian private-equity fund HitecVision in 2013 for about €35 million, which earned him the overall Ernst & Young – now EY – Entrepreneur of the Year award that year.
HitecVision originally focused on offshore oil and gas, in which Norway remains a leader, but has also turned its attention to other industries, including renewable energy.
Mr Joy bought back the stake in 2023 but did not say how much he had paid for the holding. However, he guided that the price was lower than the €35 million or so that HitecVision spent when it took the stake a decade earlier.
