A SUBSEA firm founded by two North-East engineers is expanding into South America after a little encouragement from Brazilian energy bosses.

QA Weld Tech, in Middlesbrough, is opening a factory in Sao Paulo, to continue making components for pipelines in the oil and gas sector.

The company, which employs more than 100 workers in the region, expects the Brazil plant to start work in May, saying it will strengthen North-East jobs and increase exports.

The move to South America comes after the company doubled turnover to £16m, spent £1.5m on machinery, and created 40 new posts across manufacturing and office-based roles.

Charlie Tighe, managing director, who founded the firm in 1980 with Mervyn Jones, said its growth into Brazil would take advantage of the country’s strengthening oil and gas sector.

He also revealed it was helped by support from company Petrobras, which claims to produce more than two million barrels of oil every day.

Mr Tighe told The Northern Echo: “We are doing quite a bit of work for Brazil across oil and gas, and Petrobras have visited us in Middlesbrough on a couple of occasions.

“On both times they said ‘we need one of these in Brazil’, which gave us the encouragement to do something.

“We are now in the factory in Brazil, and have a business development manager, whose job it will be over the next couple of months to get the machinery in and employ people.”

The company, which operates from units at AV Dawson’s Riverside Park, close to the River Tees, plans to spend another £400,000 on machinery and pressure testing, with a further £400,000 lined up to equip its Brazilian operation.

Specialising in welding and fabrication on complex structures, the firm previously supported British Gas’ Tyneside research division to become a manufacturing licensee to produce, WeldLink, which is used to join pipes.

Speaking about the Brazilian expansion in the context of QA Weld Tech’s 35-year-history, Mr Tighe, who worked for Head Wrightson, added: “We were both welding engineers, and Mervyn was at Whessoe, which had a big presence in Darlington.

“We knew each other through the industry and decided to get together and start this company.

“So going to Brazil is another step for us, and the oil and gas industry is huge there.

“Our strengths lie in our expertise, and more than half of our products are exported, so opening an overseas factory is a significant step in growing our global presence.

“But it will also help keep jobs here.

“The philosophy is if we can make some parts in Middlesbrough that are going to support the Brazil operation, then it will strengthen our North-East posts.”

Mr Tighe and Mr Jones’ links to North-East industry are entrenched in well-known companies.

Head Wrightson’s works were bought by Charles Arthur Head and Thomas Wrightson in 1866, and it soon moved from small castings into large bridges, blast furnaces and harbours, employing nearly 6,000 staff across six Teesside sites.

It was also previously part of a consortium, including Whessoe, that built 238 landing craft ready for D-Day in 1944.

The Whessoe name can be traced back to an ironmongers shop opened by Quaker William Kitching, in 1790.

It grew into an international group of companies, designing and making nearly every type of engineering product, from underground tunnels to reactor vessels for Britain's first nuclear power station.

In 2013, Korea-based Samsung Construction and Trading, a division of the Samsung corporation, bought Whessoe Projects, aiming to create scores of jobs through work on massive storage tanks for the oil and gas industry.