Texas firms expanding sale, manpower from export to India

WASHINGTON: When businesses in the US are facing liquidity crisis, two small companies from Texas are not only recruiting people but also expanding sales by exporting four oil and gas rigs to India.

The companies, Applied Machinery Corporation and Indam International, Inc, have got a USD 47.8 million loan guarantee from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank).

The Ex-Im Bank Board of Directors have approved a loan guarantee from UPS Capital Business Credit (UPS Capital) of Windsor in Connecticut to back the sale of onshore rigs to SREI Infrastructure International of West Bengal in India.

"Ex-Im Bank gives us another avenue to generate revenue during the current global financial crunch," said James T McDevitt, Chief Operations Officer of Applied Machinery in a statement from the Bank.

The Ex-Im Bank is the official export-credit agency of the United States.

"Applied Machinery, a rig manufacturer, has already shipped the first rig to India while the second is en-route," McDevitt said, adding thanks to these exports, our workforce has gone from 250 employees to 350 in one year.

Indam International, a 10-employee supply house and trading company and a first-time user of Ex-Im Bank, is exporting two oil rigs, manufactured by Letourneau Technologies Inc of Longview and Stewart & Stevenson of Houston in Texas.

SREI, a non-banking financing institution, plans to lease the oil rigs to two of its clients - Quippo Oil & Gas, a New Delhi-based drilling contractor and affiliate of SREI; and Tuff Drilling Private Limited, which has been awarded a contract to drill wells in Gujarat State by an oil and gas exploration and production company.