Frank Mastaglia, founder Westralian Engineering, has appointed Sam Battah as engineering manager for Flowtech Engineering. After the sale of Westralian to South West Engineering Group, Mastaglia has earmarked the smaller Flowtech company as the vehicle for his aims of targeting the oil and gas market with the expertise of Battah.

Flowtech's main capabilities to date have been in the chemical dosing and water treatment sector, with impressive sales into the Chinese and Queensland alumina industries. However, with the technical backing of Battah, Mastaglia plans to break into the competitive engineering services market.

Sam Battah is one of the industry's true journeymen. Some of his most recent work took him into the rarified world of research and development, working on Curtin University's Micro LNG program and the gas hydrates (frozen gas) program.

During this time at Curtin he completed his postgraduate degree, this time in Petroleum Engineering. This complements his Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

The world of the white lab coats was a technical development on the decades of work done out in the oilfields of the world, getting his hands dirty.

In the late 1990s, Battah was the Australian engineering manager for global pipeline player, EGIS Consulting (formerly CMSP&F) and for seven years prior to that, was the engineering superintendent for WAPET.

Five years in New Zealand saw Battah undertake appointments as executive engineer for the then Brierly owned gas transmission firm, Welgas Holdings Pty Ltd and a two year move to the dairy sector as chief engineer for one of the North Island's largest export dairy processors.

Battah began his working life working for what is now CMS Energy in the United States, rising from field operations engineer to senior projects engineer in a fifteen-year span.

In the Flowtech business, Battah is currently responsible for the management of all engineering projects related to oil and gas, mining, water treatment and infrastructure work. Some of these contracts are EPC, while others are EPCM.

Safety

One of the major challenges for a new business coming into the oilfield engineering sector is the associated safety and hazardous operations systems and processes that have to be developed and scrutinised before successfully pitching for work.

Battah has had extensive HAZOP, job safety analysis and risk assessment experience, combined with preparation of safety cases for oil and gas facilities in his previous work for the 'big engineering' end of town.

With Battah and Mastaglia actively targeting the operators of onshore surface facilities, this hands-on experience with safety case planning and hazardous area operations is essential if Flowtech's aim of facility management is to be taken seriously.

Flowtech is a company, which has its origins in commercial water treatment and dosing system design and fabrication.

It now has a proven track record of multi-discipline projects for mining, oil and gas, infrastructure and water treatment industries. Clients and projects cover the Oil and Gas, Mining and Process, and Marine sectors.