Weir Group

The Weir Group plc is a UK-listed engineering company.

Background

Weir was founded in 1871 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1947. According to its website in 2007 the company employed 'just under 8,000 people worldwide across five divisions, in closely aligned, independently successful companies, each with leading brand name products in their own sectors.'

Benefiting from the shale gas bonanza

This article is part of the Spinwatch Fracking Portal and project

The Weir Group is considered a 'pre-eminent equipment supplier in the field of fracking'. It provides pumps for the US shale industry, and would be well placed to also benefit if fracking takes off in the UK according to the Telegraph newspaper in June 2014.

[Its] shares at £26.59 are currently trading on a price-earnings (p/e) ratio of 18 times, having risen almost 25pc in the year to date, and look up with events so remain a hold.

Anti-fracking 'spin beating science' in Scotland

In March 2015 Weir chief executive Keith Cochrane expressed his concern however that 'spin is beating science' in the debate over fracking in Scotland. He told a dinner of business leaders in Edinburgh that,

I accept the issue is controversial and of course Scotland and the rest of the UK are perfectly within their rights to say no, he said.

All I ask is that they do so on the basis of fact and reason rather than propaganda and spin. I'm afraid as I look at the recent debate unfold in Scotland in particular, I think the spinners are beating the scientists and we should all regret that.

He added:

If there's one thing you learn quickly at the helm of an international business, it is just how fiercely competitive the global market place is.

I have a real fear Scotland, and to some extent the UK, risk becoming too insular, too self-obsessed. While we look in the mirror, other countries are racing ahead.

Role in Iraq

According to Corporate Watch:

Supported by the British government, Weir – Scotland's 20th largest company – is playing a key role in economic imperialism and feeding the west's oil addiction.

'I don't often praise the government, but thanks to the efforts of [DTI secretary] Patricia Hewitt we got the right introductions. A couple of months ago we had our guys in Washington DC talking to Halliburton and other companies about this work, and the government put forward our name at the very highest levels. We hope to see more outcomes like this contract.' Mark Selway, Chief Executive of the Weir Group.

Selway was commenting on the occasion when, in 2003, Weir became the first Scottish company to win 'reconstruction' contracts in Iraq: assessing the state of Iraq's oilfields and providing equipment for oil extraction. Weir had already been involved in Iraqi oil extraction for fifty years. As Peter Syme, Weir's managing director of engineering services, said, 'There is a lot of potential for us in the power market because a lot of the equipment that Iraq bought to operate its plants was made by us. We'd be upgrading our own infrastructure.'

Oil pumping equipment was not the only thing Weir was providing pre-invasion Iraq with. In 2004 Weir came to public attention as one of many western companies which had been colluding with Saddam Hussein's abuse of the UN's Oil for Food programme – assisting Saddam in filling his own pockets rather than spending money on essential food and medical equipment for Iraqi people. The company admitted that it was unable to account for £4.2 million. As it becomes increasingly clear that the war in Iraq is not over, and that the occupying troops are not in control of the situation, contracts become more difficult to keep. Weir's initial Halliburton contract was expected to open up a multi billion pound market, but in May 2005 Selway said the company would lose £20 million due to 'instability' in Iraq. Weir has laid off over 300 workers in Scotland and more around the UK, and even the management's fat cat wages have gone down after an increase in 2004.

The Weir Group also continues to provide oil pumping equipment in Sudan, where according to a Christian Aid report, 'Troops are terrorising civilians, burning homes and attacking villages in a war for oil.' Sudan's first export of crude oil in 1999 marked a turning point in an already complex civil war, with oil becoming the main objective and primary cause. Oil revenues are used by the government to buy weapons and ammunition, and the expansion of of oil extraction precipitates violent evictions. According to a former Sudanese governor, who had just managed to escape with his life:

'Without British technology, that oil cannot come out of the ground and it cannot be pumped through the pipe-line. Supporting the oil industry is supporting war... People will fight back because this is their land, More death, more killing, more suffering to the civilian population'.

People

Group executive

2014

• Keith Cochrane - CEO, originally joined as finance director in 2006, previously was chief executive of Stagecoach Group and worked for Arthur Anderson accountancy firm. Left to join contractor Carillion and was also appointed a non-executive director of UK fracking firm Third Energy in 2017.
• Jon Stanton - Finance director
• Steve Noon
• Dean Jenkins
• Pauline Lafferty
• Gavin Nicol - COO
• Keith Ruddock
• Andrew Neilson

Non-executive directors

2014

• Charles Berry, chairman appointed 1 January 2014
• Keith Cochrane, Chief executive
• Melanie Gee, also a non-executive director of Drax Group plc
• Alan Ferguson, a non-executive director of Johnson Matthey plc, Croda International plc and London Mining Plc, where he chairs the Audit Committee
• Jon Stanton, finance director
• Richard Menell, a non-executive Director of Gold Fields Ltd and Sibanye Gold Limited, both South African companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, and Rockwell Diamonds Inc.
• Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, since 2004. Also the Senior Independent Director.
• John Mogford - formerly BP for 30 years. Currently a managing director for First Reserve, a large global energy focused private equity firm. As part of this role he sits on several boards. John is Chairman of CHC Helicopters SA in Luxembourg, Amromco Energy LLC in Romania and White Rose Energy Ventures LLP in the UK ( Cuadrilla chairman John Browne also sits on the latter). Mogford is also a non-executive Director of Deep Gulf Energy LP in America, DOF Subsea AS in Norway and Midstates Petroleum, Inc, a US company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
• Mary Jo Jacobi appointed 1 January 2014. Jacobi is on the board of the UK government's Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. She is currently Managing Director of her own consultancy practice and a Non-Executive Director of Mulvaney Capital Management. She is a Senior Associate of The Leadership Council and holds several advisory and consultancy roles in the not for profit sector.

Past directors

Former

• Mark Selway Chief Executive
• Alan Mitchelson Director and Secretary

Non-executive directors

• Sir Robert Smith Chairman - until end December 2013
• Professor Ian Percy CBE Deputy Chairman & Senior Non-executive Director
• Stephen King Non-executive Director
• Christopher Clarke Non-executive Director
• Mike Dearden Non-executive Director

See also

• William Weir

Affiliations

• All Party Parliamentary Group on Unconventional Oil and Gas - is a member of this APPG managed by lobbyists Edelman
• D Group
• Task Force on Shale Gas (UK) - listed as a funder of this 'independent' group set up in October 2014, whose secretariat is lobbying and PR company Edelman

Resources

See also JAMIE DETTMER Special to the Sun Companies That Broke Iraq Sanctions Awarded Contracts in Postwar Iraq The New York Sun, November 18, 2004 edition