SFA International

21st Century Fuel Management Technology

SFA News and Press Releases

SFA Celebrates 30th Anniversary - 1980 - 2010

August 11, 2010

SFA celebrated it's 30th anniversary in business on Wednesday, August 11, 2010.  SFA was originally the Speciality Fuel Additives Division of The Perolin Company, Wilton, CT, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Signal Corporation of Stamford, CT.  Perolin was primarily in marine chemicals with an industrial division as well as the SFA division.  The company was disbanded by General Signal in 1980 and the employees of the SFA division formed a new company, SFA Technologies, Inc., to pursue the combustion turbine fuel additive market.  Walter May, who had been Vice President and General Manager of Perolin's SFA division became the President and Gregory Labas, marketing manager for the SFA division became Vice President of Marketing for the new company.

SFA Technologies enjoyed initial success working with Brown Boveri Cie of Switzerland (now ABB) subsidiary Turbotect, Ltd. as well as General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Corp. pursuing business mostly in Saudi Arabia.  By 1985, it had become evident that we could not sell through Turbotect and also pursue the same customers independently.  It was decided to split the company; Greg Labas took the Turbotect business and Walter May kept the remainder of SFA.  Following this, an alliance was developed between SFA and Oil Field Chemicals (S.A.), Ltd., a subsidiary of Exxon Energy Chemicals Division of Exxon, Inc.  SFA sold through Oil Field Chemicals and enjoyed a substantial portion of the market until the agreement ended in 1990.  SFA then formed an alliance with Yusuf bin Ahmed Kanoo in Saudi Arabia that lasted until 1996 when profit margins deterioated to the point the business was no longer profitable.

The company moved to Houston in 1993 and was reorganized as SFA International, Inc., a Texas corporation, to pursue in-house manufacturing of magnesium products.  A 20% Mg over-based magnesium carboxylate product was developed to replace the less profitable 14.2% Mg sulfonate process that had been in use in the industry for years.  As a result, SFA now has available to it superior magnesium carboxylate and magnesium sulfonate products up to 30% in Mg concentration.  In 1995, SFA began a close relationship with Westinghouse Electric Corporation to develop combustion catalysts to reduce particulate matter (smoke) from turbine exhausts.  An iron napthenate was developed that, combined with magnesium, gave unusually good control of this problem.  This work was extended into compression ignited reciprocating engines (Diesel) in 2002 with good success.  As a result of this work, five U.S. patents were filed and have issued.  Additionally, eleven foreign patents were filed giving coverage in 32 foreign countries.

In 2008, SFA joined forces with Jerry Lang Combustion Consultants to develop new information concerning use of lubricity agents combined with SFA's patented Fe-Mg combustion catalyst in low-sulfur fuels.  From this work, a new technology for NOx reduction was developed and has had very successful application in natural gas fueled spark-ignited reciprocating engines.  This technology reduces NOx well below 0.5 gm/bhp-hr required by U.S. and State regulatory agencies.  JLCC Combustion Catalysts markets these products and technology to the natural gas industry.  During this time, a theoretical basis for fuel savings was developed that predicts fuel savings from use of combustion catalysts depending on sulfur level in the fuel.  SFA is working closely with Nordic FuelTech Systems in the North Sea to comply with NOx requirements on ships as well as comply with regulations of the Norwegian NOx fund. Initial results indicate that the results in liquid fuel compression-ignited reciprocating engines is equal to those in natural gas engines.

In addition to the companies mentioned above, the company has developed a marketing and sales network through distributors that give us entry into major markets around the world.  A complete list of our distributors is given on the Distributors Page of this web site.

SFA looks to the future with new technology and products that reduce combustion emissions and pollution with reduced fuel consumption.

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