Following a comprehensive assessment process involving six vehicle manufacturers, plant and pipeline maintenance specialist Furmanite has again chosen to renew its 100-strong LCV fleet with Citroën vans.

The deal sees the Kendal based company taking delivery of a mixture of predominantly Dispatch and Relay vans on four year, with maintenance, lease contracts through Lex Autolease. The initial orders included 28 Dispatch, 24 Relay and three Berlingo vans, which will be ply-lined by supplying dealer John Wilding of Morecambe. A further 11 Dispatch L2H1, six Relay 33 L1H1 and 35 Relay L2H2 vans are now on order.

The majority of the Dispatch vans are HDi 90 manual L1H1 1000 Enterprise models, while Furmanite has also selected Berlingo HDi 75 manual L1 625 Enterprise models, with CO₂ emissions of 133g/km and 55.4mpg on the combined cycle. The order for the Relays is divided between the 35 L2H2 HDi 130 six-speed manual and the lighter and most fuel-efficient Relay, the 33 L1H1 HDi 130 six-speed manual, which has a payload of almost 1.5t and returns 38.2mpg on the combined cycle – with low CO₂ emissions of just 195g/km.

Furmanite’s Director of HR, Susan Berriman, says:

“While we already run Citroën vans, we went through a rigorous re-evaluation of a wide range other manufacturer’s LCV products before we placed the order with Citroën. Our engineers are very happy with the Citroëns – we wouldn’t have considered replacing like-for-like if they weren’t.”

Analysis included factors such as reliability – a critical factor for Furmanite.

“We offer emergency services to our clients, so when we get a call, it is vital that we get engineers on site as quickly as possible,” says Ms Berriman.

In service, Furmanite vans run fully loaded, and will cover around 90,000 miles during their four year life. The company offers maintenance and repair services such as leak sealing, hot tapping and line stopping, on site machining and valve repair services to the oil, gas and power sectors. It employs more than 300 people with around a third being field-based engineers located across the UK from Aberdeen to Exeter. The engineers drive a range of Citroën Relay, Dispatch and Berlingo vans depending on the amount of equipment they need to carry for their individual expertise and work profile.