Business View Magazine | June 2019

91 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 AT A GLANCE BLT TANKS WHAT: A producer of rebuilt tanks and pressure vessels WHERE: Kingfisher, Oklahoma WEBSITE: www.blttanks.com years by myself and, after that, we started hiring employees. Currently, we have 65 employees and we do business, worldwide.” Ragains adds that BLT has no meaning other than being the initials of family members. “We had to have a name, according to the tax commission in the State of Oklahoma, so we just threw that out there and it stuck.” In addition to the main office in Kingfisher, there is another BLT office in Brookings, Oregon. The company’s customers are most of the major propane companies in the U.S. “Our primary focus is to rebuild and make used tanks new again,” Ragains explains. “They’ve been making propane tanks for 75 years, or so, and some of those tanks are still in great shape. Our business is to find out which ones are still serviceable, and still good and safe, refurbish them, put new brass valves on them, and put them back out there. We can make most of them look like new, again. We’re competing with new vessels, but we’re providing the rebuilt ones from 40-65 percent of what new vessels cost, with nothing lost in service. And we can make them look like the new vessel. Actually, the older ones are a little heavier, the shells thicker. And they’re more durable than the new ones.” Tanks that cannot be refurbished are either scrapped or, somehow, reused. “Everything that comes in is repurposed if it’s not used for propane,” Ragains says. “The neat thing about it being a BLT TANKS