The company has for years specialised in multimillion-dollar building maintenance platforms, which hang from skyscrapers around the world.
But Farra had built 12 aluminium smelter pit platforms since designing and building one for the Tiwai Point smelter, near Bluff, several years ago, Farra Engineering chief executive John Whitaker said yesterday.
"We're probably the only company in the world actually supplying platforms to several smelters," Mr Whitaker said.
For Farra, which has experienced a decline in expected annual turnover from $20 million to $18 million and staffing fall by 10 to 100 this year because of the recession, the pit platforms are a welcome addition to the order book.
"The orders have come at a good time. It has been ideal," he said.
The company had seen the largest downturn in its domestic orders, which provided about two-thirds of its work, and while the one-third balance of export orders had been "steady", it took time to secure, Mr Whitaker said.
The 8.1-tonne pit platforms are hung over 9m deep slit-shaped pits, which make the anodes used later in the aluminium manufacturing process.
Cages are lowered by wires from drums and maintenance workers descend into the pits in temperatures of up to 65degC to replace carbon tiles (fire bricks) lining the 12m-long, 900mm-wide pits.
"It is a particularly hostile working environment. It's safety first for the workers, who used to do the jobs off ladders, so the platforms have got to be robust," Mr Whitaker said.
Farra is readying the second of two pit platforms - in a $1 million deal - for export to Qatar by the end of the month, where the world's newest and largest aluminium smelter is about to be commissioned.
"Serious discussions" have started for three more platform orders for a smelter in Bahrain and another new smelter in the United Arab Emirates, the latter larger than the Qatar smelter when operational.
Mr Whitaker said while many smelters around the world had contracted New Zealand engineering firms to build one-off platforms, word was spreading in the industry about Farra's specialisation, and the number of inquiries was increasing.
The manager for Farra Engineering Design, Marc Murray, said the design of each pit platform provided work for three staff and, in the workshop, for up to seven staff, with fabrication taking five to seven months for each platform.
He is visiting Bahrain this month to talk to potential clients and Farra will be represented at an aluminium smelter conference in the United States for the first time next May to promote its pit platforms.
