Leroy Dias, SteelCorr’s Founder and Managing Director, sat down for an exclusive interview with Marasi News to discuss the company’s inception and how it injects added value into the region
By Dushane Solomon
How did SteelCorr originate, and what products and services does it provide?
SteelCorr is a Dubai based start-up that focuses on asset integrity and corrosion protection using paints and coatings. After identifying a need in the industry for credible independent advice on paint related issues in this region, and realizing there were very few companies who could adequately investigate a paint or coating failure while providing an unbiased solution, SteelCorr was founded in 2014. Our two key product offerings are Norwegian ATEX certified Cold Cutting & Grinding tools, and the ‘Digital Paint Report’ which is hosted on DNV GL’s Veracity platform: https://veracity.com/dpr
Despite being a relatively fresh and emerging face in the UAE market, you’ve received recognition from, and strategically partnered with, reputed industry names. What was key to your early success?
We are continually embracing digitalization, an increasingly important aspect of the asset integrity industry. Thus, by identifying a unique opportunity, we launched the ‘Digital Paint Report’ in July 2018 to give stakeholders visibility of their projects and optimize coating performance and cost on their assets. After approaching DNV GL and demonstrating the value of our proposition, we reached an agreement for them to host our solution on their Veracity data platform. We are pleased that the industry recognized our efforts by selecting us as a finalist for the Lloyds List Intelligence Innovation awards, and presenting us the Digital Transformation award at the Offshore Achievement awards. We owe this success to our SteelCorr team who have worked tirelessly to make this happen.
Kindly elaborate on your collaboration with DNV GL, and what benefits the Digital Paint Report offers?
Since our Digital Paint Report solution enables the capture and management of paint data, having a secure reliable platform to host and store this information was essential – Veracity by DNV GL was a strategic fit. The Digital Paint Report enables a centralized location to record/store all paint data and efficiently manage a painting project. Reports can be prepared using any mobile/desktop device and the data can be accessed from any location. Our solution provides users with project visibility and traceability during the paint application project, and later when the asset is in service we combine the paint performance data with other external data sets to give the asset owner a predictive and analytical dashboard. This empowers stakeholders to make reliable data driven decisions on performance and paint cost optimization.
Optimization usually comes at the expense of greater financial implications but not with your services. How does SteelCorr optimize performance while reducing costs?
At USD 100 per project or USD 500 annually per vessel, our online cloud-based solution is extremely cost effective and no software downloads or additional hardware installation is required. The typical spend for annual paint or coating maintenance for a medium size asset exceeds USD 100,000, while a dry-docking paint cost can exceed USD 300,000. Hence, minimal effort can potentially save lot of money for an organization owning multiple assets.
What are your Safety Tools, and how have they revolutionized the way you approach Offshore/Refinery/Onboard Maintenance? How do they support maintenance & asset integrity?
SteelCorr is the exclusive agent in the Middle East for Safety Tools Allmet AS of Norway who produce ATEX equipment for cold cutting & grinding of steel in explosive environments. Since the entire process is Class (DNV) certified “Cold Work”, it is safe to use on Live Tanks/Pipelines carrying all classes of petroleum products. Ensuring safety, Operations and Maintenance can be executed in critical EX Zones 1 and 2 without the risks of sparks, heat, fire and explosion.
What key message do you have for your target market?
As a Dubai based start-up, we welcome strategic partnerships and investments. We constantly seek to improve our Digital Paint Report offering and its global market reach, so if there are individuals or organizations who believe they can add value, please reach out by visiting our website: https://steelcorr.com
