MEDIA RELEASE – September 24, 2021
PMG scores top game-changing deal with Asia and Europe in sight
Western Sydney battler PMG has signed a deal with an international client, shifting the tide on a tradition of exporting for the nation.
PMG is set to manufacture two high-end, 100-tonne, cement-baking autoclaves destined for Asian shores, for a big client – a rarity considering Australia’s reliance on outsourcing their manufacturing.
PMG CEO Jason Elias said it has been rare for Australia to produce these pressure vessels and export them. “It has usually been manufactured in Asia, and they have been imported into Australia,” Mr Elias said. “We have been working on this for six months, to convince this client that we are the company to deal with, and we finally got it over the line.”
Both autoclaves, designed to bake and finish building materials, will measure to 50 metres in length and 2.5 metres round. Once operational, they will be used to make fibre cement products like weatherboard panelling for houses, fibre cement sheeting, villaboards, cladding and compressed fibro for an Asian construction market. PMG then expect to build and export more vessels for the European market at a later stage, so it’s all go from here.
Manufacturing is expected to kick off at PMG’s Western Sydney facilities mid-November, and should finish around June, next year. The SME will then export to, install and commission the finished products in Asia. Steel will be purchased from Blue Scope Steel, to ensure good quality, Aussie-made products are used for the vessels to last their 20-30 year life expectancy, typical of top-notch autoclaves.
All this harmonises with PMG’s front-footed approach to strengthen and expand home grown, quality manufacturing, as well as to create jobs and local products. “This achievement is a milestone for PMG, it’s the ultimate goal for myself, and for the twenty years I have been in manufacturing,” Mr Elias said. “We have gotten a deal across the line, and now we are exporting Australian-made products.”
The journey hasn’t always been easy for the spirited CEO. “It’s one of my things I thought I’d never be doing, in manufacturing, if you would have asked me ten years ago, I would have given you all the negatives around it – about how Australia doesn’t support it,” Mr Elias said. “Now there is an acceptance that Australian manufacturing can deliver, you just have to work with the clients to make it a reality.”
So this Australia-Asia trade route can consider itself flipped, as PMG fosters a dream to an independent nation, and a viable force in the overseas market.
