For more than a decade, the Olivares family has provided South Texas oil and gas customers with custom-fabricated systems and equipment that’s on budget and on time.

Founded in 2011 by Alexis and Jesus Jr.’s parents, Osynergy was launched to realize Jesus Olivares Sr.’s dream of a family-run fabrication shop.

“After working several years in engineering, designing, and fabricating oil and gas equipment, he wanted his own shop that would benefit the company, customers, employees, and supporting team members at the same time,” Alexis says of his uncle.

Both Alexis and Jesus Jr. came on board full time after graduating from university — Alexis in the role of accountant and human resources, and Jesus Jr. as a technical engineer and operations manager.

“Doing design work, seeing that design become an actual product; that has always fascinated me,” Jesus Jr. says. “We both wear a lot of hats because it’s a small business,” Alexis adds. “We both manage safety as well. Our roles have expanded a lot since we started to help out more.”

The Osynergy team works out of a 13,200-square-foot shop in Edinburg, fabricating a wide range of equipment and system components for oil and gas, energy, and industrial customers in South Texas and — sometimes — internationally.

“We do production equipment,” Jesus Jr. says. “This could be anything from high- and low-pressure separators and line heaters to coalescing filters. We do modular skid fabrication as well as testing equipment including test separators and sand separators. We fabricate processing and treating equipment like dehydration units and contractors. We do a lot of pipe fabrication and custom fabrication. We do our own sandblasting and painting as well.”

Jesus Jr. says that the company’s ASME R Stamp allows them to repair ASME code equipment as well as make alterations based on what the customer needs. “In terms of our capabilities, we have what you call a U and U2 Stamp,” he adds, “which enables us to design and fabricate equipment according to the ASME Section VIII Division 1 and Division 2 codes.”

Alexis notes that the Osynergy team likes to function as an extension of their customers’ businesses. “We always treat others as we want to be treated,” he continues. “Our priority is always delivering projects and products as promised, on time, and with high standards while utilizing lean manufacturing.”

To reduce cutting time and improve efficiency, Osynergy utilizes a CNC burner plasma table. “It produces a much higher quality of cut,” Jesus Jr. says, “so that allows us to be efficient with our time when we’re fabricating various types of equipment.”

A submerged arc welding machine also allows for higher quality and higher production rates. “It’s pretty much semi-automatic,” Jesus Jr. explains. “We’ll have a welder on there that is controlling the parameters of the machine. But other than that, it’s doing the welding itself.”

A recent investment was made to transition to airless painting equipment. “This reduces the environmental parameters,” Jesus Jr. says, “because it doesn’t get as much humidity and whatnot in the line. We’re always trying to find ways to become more efficient and reduce costs.”

Challenges: As it did for most businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in Osynergy’s works — at least for a while. Alexis says that revenue declined by 40 percent in 2020 and by 10 percent in 2021 but is now showing growth again. “It appears to be comparable to where we left off in 2019, which is good,” he concludes.

Other challenges include finding workers to fill various roles as well as fluctuating materials costs.

“Before, you could do a quote for a customer and say, ‘You have this many days to decide,'” Jesus Jr. says. “But now, because material pricing is only good for one day, it dramatically affects how you quote. This also leads to competition in terms of price bidding. A lot of companies are having to make decisions based off rising material prices and labor costs.”

Photos courtesy Osynergy

Opportunities: Alexis says the high demand for oil is an opportunity for Osynergy. “With Russia and the Ukrainian war, it pushed oil up pretty high,” he continues. “Our opportunity is trying to capitalize on that high demand for oil before it kind of levels out two or three years down the road.”

Needs: “We probably need to expand a bit in terms of capacity,” says Jesus Jr. “And due to our limited personnel and resource pool, we’re currently working overtime just to keep up with customer demands.”

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