Patrick Joy is the founder and Executive Chairman of Suretank Group Ltd. He is a Chartered Engineer (University College Dublin, 1974) and also has an MBA (Trinity College Dublin, 1988).
Suretank is a global business servicing the offshore oil industry from manufacturing and sales offices in Ireland, UK, Norway, Poland, Netherlands, Thailand, China, Australia, USA and Brazil. Patrick spends considerable time each year in the air visiting these countries and also his customers who are to be found in all corners of the world where there is drilling and production of “offshore” oil.
Patrick Joy was recently named the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year for 2013 and will be representing Ireland at the World EOY in June 2014. Married to Mary, they have 5 children and two grandchildren and live in Baltray. Co. Louth. Outside of his large family, Patrick’s main interest is golf followed by rugby, reading and bridge. He has just recently hired a CEO for the business and taken on the role of Executive Chairman which will allow him some more time to pursue these and other interests. He is a Member of Engineers Ireland, The Institute of Directors, Boyne RFC, Seapoint and Co. Louth (Baltray) golf clubs.
Company Profile
Suretank designs and manufactures cargo carrying units (CCUs) and tanks for the offshore oil industry. The business was founded in Dundalk in 1995 supplying these products to the North Sea and revenue in year 1 was € 1 million with 14 employees. Today, Suretank employs over 600 people and revenue is €71 million, translating as an average 20% + per annum growth over 18 years.
Suretank manufactures in 7 countries (Ireland, UK, Poland, Thailand, China, Brazil and USA), has sales offices in Dunleer, Aberdeen, Bergen, Bangkok, Zhongshan, Perth, Rio de Janeiro and Houston and its products are found in all parts of the world where there is production of offshore oil.
Suretank is now the world’s largest manufacturer of offshore transport tanks for chemicals, helifuel and acids with a 62% market share and is the recognised leader in this product category. Most of these tanks are produced in their Dunleer factory where they have just opened a new technical centre and HQ with 43 seats at a cost of €2 million. They will sign contracts this summer for a 40% expansion of their production space in Dunleer at a cost in excess of € 1 million.
The CCU sector of the offshore market is a higher volume business than the tank business but from zero market share in 1999 Suretank have now achieved 22% market share and established themselves as a serious player.
Since the beginning, Suretank has expanded its business by improving existing products or by developing new products for their customers. They have engineers located at all of their manufacturing locations as well as Aberdeen. All of their sales team are engineers or come from a strong engineering background. In 2010, Suretank set up a separate R & D group based in Dunleer where prototype new products are now first designed and tested. In 2011, they launched a cryogenic (liquid nitrogen) tank and already have established a foot print and started to make a name for themselves as a premium and high quality supplier in this niche area. Last year Suretank designed and built their first offshore refrigerated container and have a number of other products on the drawing board that can be used in the highly hazardous areas on the offshore platforms. Their current 5 year plan is to produce 10% of their revenue from these new products within 5 years.
Suretank’s customers read like a “who’s who” of the oil industry. They include all the major rental companies (Swire, Ferguson Seacabs, Euro Offshore, OEG, Hoover), all the large service companies (Halliburton, Schlumberger, BJ Baker, IKM) and indirectly all the major oil companies. All of their equipment is certified by either DNV (Det Norske Veritas) or Lloyds Register.