Burckhardt compressors pressurise the world

Not a science fiction landscape but compressors from Winterthur. Burckhardt Compression

The Winterthur company Burckhardt Compression has announced it wants to be listed on the Swiss stock exchange, probably within the next few weeks.

The company, which makes machines that can squeeze gases into liquid form, feels that going public will set it on a new course to grow independently and strengthen its market position.

A former part of the Sulzer family, the firm has performed well in recent years, although the public knows little of what it actually manufactures.

Mention the word “compressor” and many people will scratch their heads. Unless you are technically minded it probably won’t mean very much.

Chief executive Valentin Vogt explains that the company’s products are in action around the globe, making Burckhardt Compression a world leader in its field.

“There are basically two ways to compress gases. One is through rotation, for example a hairdryer that everyone has at home, and the other is through an oscillating movement with a piston; a bicycle pump would be a practical example,” he said.

His company, which has a history going back well over a century, is focused on the piston or reciprocating compressor technology, which is used in a wide range of applications.

Customers are companies in the field of oil refining, chemical and petrochemical industries, air separation as well as gas transport and storage.

Their industries use compressors to raise the pressure, to reduce the volume and to cool or liquefy gases, including hydrocarbon, industrial and boil-off gases.

Mechanical engineering

The foundations of the company were laid when Franz Burckhardt opened a small workshop in Basel in 1844 at a time when the pioneering age of Swiss mechanical engineering was just beginning.

He started by engraving fine cylinders for silk weaving but “Mecanicus” as he called himself had greater ambitions, gradually building up from a workshop to a factory making air and vacuum pumps.

Forty years later the company manufactured its first compressor and found its niche.

It was taken over by Sulzer at the end of the 1969 but became independent in 2002 after a management buyout.

“There are all the traditional Swiss values in what we are doing: quality, reliability and precision. They are all needed in our products,” Vogt said.

Challenges

High pressures, low temperatures, toxic, dirty or clean gases are typical challenges for the company’s compressors.

And they have to work under severe conditions, working 8,000 or more hours per year.

“Many don’t stand in a machine house. They stand somewhere in an open environment in winter, summer, in rain and snow or heat and they have to perform,” Vogt said.

When asked what those 8,000 hours meant in terms of reliability, the chief executive likened the performance of one of his compressors to that of a car.

“The average car drives for 200,000 kilometres and if you run at an average 50 km per hour after 4,000 hours, you basically dispose of your car. That’s half the running time of one of our compressors a year.”

Reliability

“In its lifetime, a car might have to go ten to 15 times for a service. Our compressors normally run 16,000 hours between overhaul so that’s what we call reliability.”

Vogt was in India earlier this year, checking among other things on developments at the company’s subsidiary in Pune, which was the former compressor division of Sulzer India.

“We are not only in India because it has a good engineering base but also because it’s a huge market, with now a population of 1.2 billion people. Every fifth person in the world is an Indian – we’d better be here,” he said.

Vogt is optimistic about the future, even though some applications are changing.

“In the 1920s we compressed a lot of ammonia and now we compress hydrogen. As long as there are gases in this world and there are still a lot, including natural gases and air with which you can make gases, there will be business.”

swissinfo, Robert Brookes

Key facts

Although it can trace its roots back to 1844, Burckhardt Compression only came to being in 2002 through a management buyout of Sulzer Burckhardt. It was the second-largest management buyout in Switzerland that year.
The Sulzer Corporation had bought Burckhardt, which was then based in Basel, in 1969.
Sulzer is a Swiss industrial engineering and manufacturing firm established in 1834 in Winterthur, near Zurich.
Burckhardt Compression recorded sales of SFr168 million in 2004, up 3% on 2003. It employs about 540 people.

In brief

Winterthur used to be home to Switzerland’s rail industry and an industrial centre but both have largely disappeared.

The name Sulzer is synonymous with the city, which is 20 minutes by train north of Zurich.

The insurance company, Winterthur, was founded in the city in 1875. That is part of the Credit Suisse Group.