CHICAGO — At A-Gas, the focus is on providing contractors options to make submitting their recovered refrigerant for reclamation fast and easy. Rob Hennessy, chief commercial officer, noted the company has a new tag line: “Together We Can,” which portrays how A-Gas will partner with contractors to help them meet their recovery and reclamation responsibilities.
Hennessy said the company’s Total Solutions program, which offers multiple options for reclamation, was made possible by several key acquisitions made over the past three years.
In September of 2015, A-Gas purchased Refri-Claim from ICOR Intl. to provide an easy and straightforward way for wholesalers to receive recovered gases from contractors. It then acquired Rapid Recovery — a contractor–facing recovery service — in June of 2016. And, finally, in August of 2017, A-Gas acquired Diversified Pure Chem, which gave it separation and blending capabilities.
“With the acquisitions of Refri-Claim and Rapid Recovery, we captured two pieces of the reclamation market: one through wholesales and one contractor-direct,” Hennessy said. “The acquisition of Diversified Pure Chem gives us the third piece that rounds out the life cycle management of refrigerants through every channel.”
Hennessy explained A-Gas sees three major types of contractors and can now offer a reclamation solution for all three.
“Some contractors want to take the easiest possible approach, which is simply to take their recovered gases to the wholesaler and drop the cylinders off,” he said. “In some cases, they get paid. In other cases, they don’t. But, either way, they are doing their part for the environment, which is great. We can serve those contractors through our acquisition of Refri-Claim.
“The priority for some other contractors is to be sure they get paid for their recovery efforts,” Hennessy continued. “They are fine with the idea of someone else consolidating their cylinders for them, and we have those contractors covered through our acquisition of Rapid Recovery. And then we have the speedy guys. These are the contractors who store their recovered refrigerant at their sites saying, ‘I just want someone to come make this really easy on me by coming out here and getting the gas.’ We can do that either by recovering it on-site for them or through a cylinder exchange. We take care of all the details, such as DOT issues and new cylinders.”
Whichever option a contractor prefers, A-Gas will handle all the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paperwork.
“Life cycle management is a big part of Total Solutions,” Hennessy said. “Especially with the new Section 608 ruling that makes technicians responsible for record keeping. Now they have an easy button.”
Education is also an important part of Total Solutions. Hennessy said A-Gas encourages contractors and technicians to keep the gases separated because clean recovered gases are worth more to them than mixed gases. However, the acquisition of Diversified Pure Chem means A-Gas is equipped to handle a mixed refrigerant “cocktail.”
“The key to reclamation and the sale of reclaimed gases going forward is going to be the separation capabilities,” Hennessy said. “We now have the capabilities to separate these dirty gases, strip out the salient components, get them back to AHRI [Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute] 700 specifications, and put them back into the market without constantly worrying about the regulatory environment and the various phaseouts of new virgin gases.”
Publication date: 2/26/2018
