Acetylene was first established here in Hawke’s bay back in the 1800’s under the brand of the Acetylene Co of NZ which later became New Zealand Industrial Gases commonly known as NZIG. This was purchased by the British Oxygen Company (BOC) back in 1990 who was then purchased by the Linde Corporation of Germany back in September 2006. 

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BOC has a long standing relationship with the engineering industry constantly developing and fine tuning gas mixtures to meet the demands of the Fabrication, Light to Heavy Transport, Sheet Metal & Boat Building Industries to name but a few. 

BOC also do their own line of welding machines under the Smootharc brand but also have the exclusive agency for the German manufactured EWM range of welding machines. We also sell and demonstrate Soldamatic augmented reality training machines. 

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BOC was very keen to come on board with this great initiative with Hastings Boys’ High School and Patton’s to help them to develop their skills in the engineering fields, with an aging population in the engineering industry we need young people locally in this field. 

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BOC will continue to give full support into the future with this program and can possibly look at some Soldamatic welding training on the demo machines next trip around the country.