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Alpeco Updates Caldo's St. Helens Depot
9th July 2012
The Scott family had been in business as Iron Founders and Engineers in St. Helens, Lancashire from the early part of the 19th. century, when in 1922 the five Scott brothers Austin, Leo, George, Walter and John started The Caledonian Oil Company. In 1951, the business was renamed Caldo Oils and today remains a successful, family concern with a large and diverse business portfolio.
The main depot at St Helens was originally fitted with a top loading facility, which, although regularly serviced and maintained, was deemed 'too old'. The top loading rack and the meters had done sterling service but had to be changed, so Caldo Oils Managing Director, Mike Scott, initiated a detailed search for a replacement. His enquiries led him to contact Adrian Baskott at Aylesbury-based Alpeco Limited. Several meetings later, the brief had been confirmed, a detailed design prepared and a proposal submitted for consideration.
Alpeco were able to satisfy Mike Scott's requirement to provide an analogue installation as he had well-founded faith in 'cogs and wheels'. This wasn't by any means an old-fashioned approach by Mike Scott, he just preferred the traditional technology that had worked for him and his family for generations.
Alpeco were awarded the contract to supply and install Caldo Oils with a new bottom-loading skid equipped with 4 loading arms and mechanical meters configured for 900lpm loading rates. Alpeco Limited was also able to provide a finance package through their business finance partner, CBF.
Mike Scott advised, "I specifically elected to use an analogue system as I am a traditionalist. I very much liked the cogs and wheels of our previous system which had lasted more than 30 years, so we have no reason to expect any less from the new installation. We are very happy with our new system ], which has seen all new pipework installed right back to tanks, and very good it looks too. Although we have a number of depots, we provide all of our fuel supplies from our St Helens facility as this is our only 'wet' depot. Alpeco came up with a very good deal through their finance partners CBF and we believed, quite correctly as it turns out, that it is much easier to use one source to design, manufacture, install and even finance the whole project.
"Alpeco also offers a very good back up service. This means a lot to me as I can pick up the telephone certain in the knowledge that they won't present us with an invoice for something that should have been provided in the first place. Also, you can actually speak to someone on the phone, which is always a great help."
