LINDAU, Germany - Axima Refrigeration, Lindau, Germany; Smardt Inc., Montreal, Canada; and Boronia Technologies Party Ltd. (PowerPax), Melbourne, Australia; have formed a new chiller engineering and manufacturing group.

"The partnership with Smardt in North America and with PowerPax in the West Pacific means we can now serve and support our major international customers with the same standards and the same energy efficiencies and the same reliability they insist on in Europe," said Dr. Martin Altenbokum, CEO of Axima Refrigeration. "Together with Smardt and PowerPax we clearly have more engineering and field experience with oil-free chillers than anyone else in the world. We mean to consolidate and reinforce that lead as one of the world's pre-eminent chiller groups.

"Turbocor oil-free compressor technology is an important element of Axima Refrigeration's know-how surrounding industrial cooling systems and solutions," said Altenbokum. The oil-free compressor technology was pioneered in Australia, and then developed in Canada by Turbocor Inc., led for its first 10 years by president and CEO Roger Richmond-Smith. "Our PowerPax and Smardt units include many key members of the original Turbocor team," said Richmond-Smith. "Not surprisingly, our group's oil-free centrifugal chillers deliver the best efficiencies and the lowest lifetime operating costs in the industry."