Being part of an industry having an impact on our daily life makes it exciting

What is your background and career path at Neles?

I joined Neles in 2010 as a Project Engineer in the Global project quotation team. In 2014, I started to lead the Global project quotation team for Asia Pacific region, and at the beginning of 2019 I moved to the Industry management team, as Industry Manager for Refining & Chemicals. In total, I have more than 11 years of experience with Neles. I started my work career in 2008, soon after completing my mechanical engineering studies. As you see, I have spent most of my career at Neles.

What inspires or motivates you at work?

There are several factors that motivate me at work.

Learning: Over the years in the company, I have learned a lot and the learning curve continues to grow in an exponential way. Learning makes me happy and gives me a feeling of satisfaction at work.

Opportunities: I have had the opportunity to work on some challenging cases, and this has helped me to handle complex situations. Handling difficult situations is not easy but it helps you to learn and grow.

People: The possibility to work in a global environment and to engage with people from different parts of the world makes my job more exciting. Also, I feel lucky to have worked with colleagues who have inspired me by their approach to work and in their handling of challenging situations. “The more you learn, the more you share, the more you grow.”

“The more you learn, the more you share, the more you grow.”

Can you explain a bit about your global role?

As Industry Manager, I engage with our sales and customers globally to discuss Neles’ solutions for various industrial applications. The refining & chemicals industry has very wide applications that produce a variety of products. Having an application-based valve offering helps to understand the challenges in each area and to offer the best Neles solutions for those challenges. It also supports the overall business development of the industry.

Do you have a nice work memory to share with us?

There are many instances I could share, but I will highlight just a couple of them here.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to work in Neles Finland for two months. It was the first time my stay was so long. It was a fascinating experience to be in a new place and to interact with many new people.

Another good memory is when I participated in our Innovation competition and presented our idea along with my other team members in a global forum. We organize these innovation competitions yearly.

Can you explain the importance of valves in refining & chemicals?

The refining and chemicals industry produces a wide range of products with different applications, and various types of valves are required for the process. Valves play an important and crucial role in the overall safety and process efficiency of the plant. In a typical process plant, you see valves that are standard and valves that are critical, due to either safety or other challenges.

In refining, there are applications that need to handle very high temperatures, high pressure drops, slurry fluids, and high cycling applications. The valves are crucial for such critical applications and require industry-experienced valve vendors to provide the right solutions.

In petrochemical plants, there are also challenging applications, such as the handling of polymer slurry, high cycles, etc., so valves do play a very crucial role in that industry, too.

What is so exciting about the industry?

The products that are produced in refining & chemical plants are used in our daily life – right down to even the simplest products: one good example of such a product is the face mask – they’re typically made from polypropylene, which is basically produced in a petrochemical plant using a polymerization process. So, being part of an industry having an impact on our daily life makes it exciting. In addition, the complexity of the process plants and the different challenges to handle complex process conditions makes it even more interesting.

Being part of an industry having an impact on our daily life makes it exciting.

What kind of valve solutions does Neles offer for the refining & chemicals industry?

Neles has a very wide range of valves to support the needs of the industry. We offer ball valves, butterfly valves, and a wide range of rotary control valves and linear globe valves. All our major brands, Neles™, Jamesbury™, and Easyflow by Neles™, include products to support industry needs. Neles offers both standard valves and valves for critical applications, such as high cycling valves, dryer sequencing valves, slurry valves, polymer handling valves, cryogenic valves, valves for high temperatures, and various others.

For on-off and ESD applications, Neles offers ball valves (both soft-seated and metal-seated) and butterfly valves (soft-seated and metal-seated).

For control applications, Neles offers rotary valves, such as V-port segment valves for high rangeability applications, eccentric rotary plug valves for dirty services, as well as butterfly valves and ball valves based on process needs. In globe valves, Neles has products to meet various standard flow conditions and also more severe service conditions with special engineered trims.

How do we partner with our customers? How do our customers benefit by choosing Neles?

We engage with our customers through various channels. In projects, we typically start engaging with our customer right at the early stage and continue until the commissioning and service support of the plant, so it’s a full life-cycle support. We work with our customers to support the plant maintenance activities. We also have a network of distributors to support our customers globally.

There are several benefits that the customer gets by partnering with Neles. Common feedback from industry customers is about the high quality of Neles products. Our customer surveys clearly show that customers value us for our quality. Neles valves comply with industry standards when it comes to emissions. Another customer benefit is the total cost of ownership when choosing Neles valves. There is capex involved in buying a valve, but there are also costs in maintaining them. At Neles, we always emphasize the fact that it is important to look at the total cost of ownership. Neles products do bring immense value to our customers. Reliability is another important reason why customers choose Neles.

How do you see the future of the industry? How can Neles help customers achieve the future needs and requirements?

The refining & chemicals industry is going through significant and highly impactful changes. Climate change and the commitments made by many countries to support climate change actions have an impact on the refining & chemicals industry. The whole energy transition is a hot topic, and it continues to gain more importance.

Neles has been at the forefront to support customers with the changing energy dynamics.

Neles has been at the forefront to support customers with the changing energy dynamics. Just to highlight, we have supplied valves for HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil), which converts vegetable oil and other biomass to green/renewable diesel. There is also lot of interest in green hydrogen and carbon capture technologies and various other technologies that seem to play an important role in this energy transition. Neles, as always, will continue to engage closely with customers and support them with reliable valve solutions.

The text has been updated in April 2022, due to the company name change to Valmet.