Now a publicly listed company, RCR's latest achievement has been passing the rigorous API standards API-6A and API-7 for the manufacture of Wellhead and Christmas tree equipment and Rotary Drill Stem elements. It is the only West Australian company accredited to these standards.
Their achievement becomes even more impressive when you realise there are only 24 other facilities around the world which have similar Kelly Valve repair accreditation. In fact, even the API consultants recommended against attempting that certification, knowing how hard it was to achieve.
RCR came through this mother of all API standards with flying colours, helped in no small way by the impressive QA regime in place at the business, which has four major facilities around the country. RCR has had ISO-9001 accreditation for many years.
MD John Linden said their team still found the requirements of the audit extremely tough. "It is a credit to the company that we have achieved this level of recognition in the oil & gas servicing market and proves that RCR has lifted quality awareness to a new level," he said.
"The ISO standards were found to be a good foundation to work from, in setting up special requirements to conform to the API standards."
RCR also makes a practice of storing its customers' equipment, be it wellheads or kilometres of drilling tubulars, at the huge laydown area that surrounds the factory. Once the repairs are made, clients are more than happy to leave the equipment at site, ready for dispatch to the next work location. Industry brands such as OD&E, Tasman Oil Tools, Hydrill and Weatherford can be seen being stored throughout the facility.
RCR recently posted a pleasing financial result, with sales boosted up 39% to $83.5 million, giving a $2.3 million profit for the year.
While the oil and gas division was only a small contributor to annual earnings, Linden said with API accreditation they were hoping to attract more such work, especially tubular management and downhole gear servicing.
While the company was unsuccessful in winning any work on the LNG train 4 project, Linden hoped their new API accreditation would stand them in good stead.
The full circle for RCR is best explained by one of the captains of the drilling industry, Dick Dumbrell, who was a director of OD&E from the 1950's until its takeover by AOG Corporation in 1985, and who then co-founded and led Century Drilling in the late 1980s until its takeover by the Downer Group in the late 1990s.
"Ernie Tomlinson ran what we knew to be a nice steel facility - Tomlinson Steel it was called at the time I think - and it had one of the only oil country lathes available at the time. Along with WAPET, we encouraged Ernie to get the API accreditation so he could remachine and manufacture things like thread gauges, drill collars and things like that, on a local basis.
"They ran a good show even in those days and were able to give attention to the critical tolerances needed for those critical pieces of equipment. They had good steel."
From one of the only players in the country during the gestation of the industry in the 50's to one of only two dozen currently around the globe with their precise attention to detail, RCR Tomlinson Ltd is as tough and long wearing as the steel it machines.
