Small U.S. Firms Play Big Role In $216.8M Sale To Mexico's Pemex
Washington, D.C. - Forty-three small businesses - from Pennsylvania to Texas and from Florida to Minnesota – are participating in a $216.8M export sale to enable Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to upgrade its Minatitlan refinery, backed by a $200M loan guarantee from Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank).
According to Ex-Im Bank, they're proof that small business exporters reap big benefits from its supported sales for major projects, even when the foreign buyers are as large as petroleum producer, Pemex.
"We're a small company and we couldn't finance this export sale by ourselves," said Felipe Suarez, President of Merichem Chemicals & Refinery Services LLC, Houston, TX, which is supplying a $4M skid-mounted modular caustic treatment processing unit for the Minatitlan project. "If it hadn't been for the Ex-Im Bank-guaranteed loan, a much larger global competitor, able to offer the buyer competitive financing, likely would have won the order." Suarez said Merichem plans to add 20 employees to its 200-person workforce to handle the new business, and "we expect this transaction to lead to follow-on business as well."
"Supporting U.S. jobs through exports is Ex-Im Bank's mission, but much more of our support goes to small businesses than is generally realized," said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President James H. Lambright. "More than 80% of our financing transactions are made on behalf of small businesses. In addition, we support many small firms that are sub-suppliers in large export sales, and the Minatitlan project is a perfect example of this."
FS-Elliott Co., LLC of Export, PA, is providing $1.5M of custom-built air compressors for the Minatitlan project, and adding staff in the process to handle this and other export orders. "We're doing the opposite of sending jobs abroad," says FS-Elliott Chief Executive Officer Ronald L. Stewart. "We're investing in western Pennsylvania. Oil companies are doing major capital investment, and our backlogs are growing dramatically. We've added about 20 people over the past six months to meet demand, and we'll need to add another ten to work on this project."
Ex-Im Bank financing of projects such as Minatitlan "creates strong incentive for the purchaser to use U.S. companies," Stewart said.
Ex-Im Bank's long-term loan guarantee supports Pemex's purchase of U.S. goods and services to build nine new process units at its General Lazaro Cardenas refinery ("Minatitlan"), Mexico's oldest refinery near the city of Minatitlan in Veracruz state. The upgrade will enable Minatitlan to refine additional heavy high sulfur oil and increase the production of gasoline and middle distillates with reduced levels of sulfur. Calyon S.A., New York, NY, is the guaranteed lender on the transaction. Suppliers such as Merichem and FS-Elliott work through several large engineering, procurement and construction contractors on the Minatitlan project.
While not yet finalized, the prospective list of U.S. small business exporters currently includes companies located in the following cities:
Florida: Clearwater
Georgia: Dallas, Lawrenceville
Illinois: Chicago, St. Charles
Michigan: Saginaw, Shelby Township
Minnesota: Minneapolis
New Hampshire: Nashua, Salem
New York: Batavia
Ohio: Dayton
Oklahoma: Tulsa
Pennsylvania: Ivyland, Mohnton
Texas: Austin, Houston, Lewisville, Sugar Land
Vermont: Williston
Virginia: Sterling
SOURCE: Ex-Im Bank