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CUEL announces completion of first Thai built residential petroleum platform

Making an impact in the family business

Thai-Cambodian border trade robust after rules relaxed

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CUEL announces completion of first Thai built residential petroleum platform

Vimolrat Singnikorn
The first residential petroleum platform constructed in Thailand for use in the Gulf of Thailand has been completed by CUEL Co Ltd at its fabrication facilities at Laem Chabang.

The first residential petroleum platform constructed in Thailand is ready to go to sea.

Announcing the completion of the platform during a meeting held on October 24 at the Dusit Resort, CUEL’s director of business development Somchai Sampeenong said that the company has also developed a plan to remove disused petroleum platforms from the Gulf.
Somchai said that the company has developed an expertise in engineering design, procurement of materials for constructing iron structures, and building and commissioning advanced work platforms.
He said that with the development of a demolition service for disused and dilapidated platforms, the company is extending its range of services. About 70 platforms have been built in or just outside the Gulf of Thailand, some of them in the Thai-Malaysia Development Area.
The new oil and gas platform was built for PTT, work having started in 2006 with the project being completed in only 15 months. The installation will be ready to house its workers by the end of this year.
Chevron Thailand Production Co Ltd has meanwhile commissioned CUEL to build and install a similar platform for its workers.
 

Making an impact in the family business

Sirima Eamtako
(TTG Asia)
Running one of South-east Asia’s largest exhibition and convention venues was really not something Paul Kanjanapas had expected to do right after graduating from university.

Paul Kanjanapas - one of the young high-flyers in Thailand’s business world.

When he studied for his bachelor’s degree in international business at the European Business School in London, his family’s businesses were in real estate (Bangkok Land), watches (City Chain) and optical wear (Optical 88).
But when Muang Thong Thani Stadium was opened as one of Bangkok’s key venues for the 13th Asian Games in 1998 with a large 12,000-seat multipurpose arena, his only sibling – older brother, Peter Kanjanapas – was already managing director of Bangkok Land. So the younger Mr. Kanjanapas was tasked to help IMPACT Exhibition Management’s first managing director, John Seller, to run IMPACT Muang Thong Thani as the company’s assistant managing director. He was in the position for three years. It was not a bed of roses.
“I was unhappy to be in Thailand,” Mr. Kanjanapas confessed. “I was not born here so I could not speak Thai, nor did I have any friends here and I knew nothing about MICE.
“So it was not only the business world that I had to deal with, but also cultural differences. It was not a fun transition.”
However, what kept the 23-year-old going was his loyalty to his father, the Thai property tycoon who was on the Forbes 1995 list of foreign billionaires, Mr. Anant Kanjanapas.
“I wanted to work for him because he invested so much in me, sending me to study overseas and raising me to who I am now. I needed to repay him.”
After two years on the job, Mr. Kanjanapas said he began to enjoy working in the MICE industry. He also found some good friends and has reversed his earlier desire to leave Thailand.
He was promoted to managing director. Speaking about the last six years, he said: “Our venue has expanded, the number of events has doubled and we are able to price ourselves at the level we want.”
From a sports complex with a 12,000-seat stadium in 1998, IMPACT Muang Thong Thani today comprises more than 140,000m2 of total usable space, including the arena, 14 exhibition halls, three grand ballrooms and 36 breakout rooms.
The venue attracts about 15 million local and international visitors attending around 400 events and generating some 1.6 billion baht (US$50.7 million) in revenue per year.
But Mr. Kanjanapas attributed these achievements to good teamwork, saying he valued the effort of everyone involved.
He said: “One of the milestones is that we managed to attract a foreign investor for the first time when one of Europe’s biggest fund managers, Juutland, bought 40 per cent of IMPACT’s shares (through parent company Bangkok Land) for seven billion baht this year.
“We are proud of this development because if foreign investors do not believe in our management team – my father, the key management and me – they won’t invest such a large amount and just be a silent partner in the company. It’s not even their own money, but the funds they manage.
“After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, only a few people thought IMPACT would make it, but apparently we have!”
Mr. Kanjanapas quashed rumours that his authority was still pretty much under his father’s control. He admitted his father, as the company’s chairman, definitely had the power over expansion plans and the selling of shares “but when it comes to day-to-day operations, things are up to me”.
Nevertheless, he said his father was his role model who had inspired him the most in life because of one very important ethic: “My father never looks out for his own interests when he works. Instead he puts the family’s and company’s interests as his first priority.
“I intend to take the same path as my father, looking after the interests of those having interests in the company, including shareholders – such as Bangkok Land and Juutland – and employees.”
He has a vision to make the company one of the top corporations that people want to work for, or to invest in. He said people now applied for jobs at IMPACT because it was a big company and located near where they lived, but the level of staff efficiency was still not at a satisfactory level.
“My goal is to see people apply for a job at IMPACT because they want to work for the company, which in the future will be enjoying a low turnover and job vacancy rate. And when we become a public-listed company within the next three years, my vision is for our share price to keep rising and to attract more investments.”
Part of the game plan is the one-billion-baht investment in a five-star, 400-room hotel within the exhibition and convention premises. The hotel, slated to open in late-2009, is expected to complete the entire complex as a one-stop MICE venue.
Having headed the company for six years, Mr. Kanjanapas has ventured to take up an industry position for the first time this year as vice-president for education and public relations for the Trade Exhibition Association.
“Also, after nine years in the industry, this year is the first time I was fully hosted to speak on a panel discussing the Asian MICE industry at the Asian Federation of Exhibition and Convention Associations’ 2007 Forum in Taipei in September.
“This is, again, a group achievement. They recognise the significance of IMPACT as a major Asian MICE operator and that’s why I was invited to speak about the industry.”
With his vision and enthusiasm, Paul Kanjanapas is a real asset for Thailand’s MICE industry, which is flourishing at a consistent increase of 20 per cent per year. He is also seen as someone who will help promote up-and-coming faces of the future.
He said once he had successfully taken the company to the top, his next move would be to invest in human development, “granting scholarships to the children of my staff to study at universities in Thailand, giving them the education opportunity and in turn enable me to retain my staff”.