Huge Job Boost At Hughes

Fifty new jobs are to be created at a Belfast-based engineering company.

Hughes Christensen, at Montgomery Road, is a Baker Hughes company, which makes drill bits for the oil and gas industry.

The firm can trace its lineage right back to ‘eccentric’ star Howard Hughes as his father was the man who invented and patented the tri-cone roller bit, which was to revolutionise the oil industry.

Now the company is benefiting from a £4.6m investment, with the project receiving nearly £900,000 of funding from Invest Northern Ireland.

Plant manager Ian Warke said Belfast had beaten competition from other factories worldwide.

"We're competing with areas in the company to make this product," he said.

"The growth of the market is in the eastern hemisphere, and we are strategically placed to service that market - the growth in this particular product is forecast to be 100% in the next five years."

Howard Hughes Jnr, a Hollywood film maker from the 1920s and a passionate aviator, was the man who grasped people's imaginations.

He was a lifelong aircraft enthusiast, pilot, and self-taught aircraft engineer who broke world records and designed and built aircraft.

But he spent the last 20 years out of the public eye living as a partial recluse.

Announcing the investment at Hughes Christensen in Castlereagh, Invest NI’s Chief Executive, Leslie Morrison said: “In today’s marketplace it is essential that firms continuously innovate to remain competitive. By developing its Northern Ireland production capability for the technologically advanced drill bit, Hughes Christensen is reinforcing its leading position in this sector.

“In addition to the benefits to the company, including highly customised product design, the establishment of this new facility further establishes Northern Ireland as a prime location for high value added product design and manufacture,” added Mr Morrison.

(BMcC)