Metso’s valve business – to be renamed Neles Corp after a partial demerger – has strengthened its valves service availability with new service centres in Portugal and France.

The company will establish two new facilities in Lisbon, Portugal, and in the Mulhouse area, France, to increase its valves’ service availability and improve its customer presence, it said. These service centres will offer valve repair services as well as predictive maintenance services, eg digitalised process diagnostic services and shutdown planning, to help customers to increase their plant reliability, it said.

Timo Hänninen, Vice President of Valve Services at Metso, said: “We are constantly developing our operations to fulfil our customers’ needs. We have a comprehensive service portfolio, ranging from genuine quality parts to complex shutdown solutions. We want to be a reliability partner by helping our customers to reduce the risks of valve failure and expensive unplanned shutdowns.”

The service centre in Portugal was opened during the September quarter of 2019, with the France facility planned to open in the June quarter of 2020.

Neles currently has 40 service sites in more than 20 countries.

“Our valve services experts are involved in more than 150 large-size shutdowns globally every year, and today we have more than 100 valve service agreements with our customers,” Hänninen says.

Neles Corp is planned to be created in a partial demerger of Metso, in which Metso’s Flow Control business would become the independent Neles. Simultaneously, Metso’s Minerals Business would combine with Outotec to create Metso Outotec.

The partial demerger is targeted to be completed in the June quarter of 2020, subject to the receipt of all required regulatory and other approvals. The Extraordinary General Meetings of both Metso and Outotec approved the transaction on October 29, 2019.