PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Totem Equipment enters global marketplace with Alaska-built heaters

Susan Braund

Anchorage-based Totem Equipment and Supply recently announced international distribution of its Alaska-built portable heaters. In two separate deals, Totem is delivering heater trailers to both Sakhalin Island and South Korea.

Family owned and operated for 42 years, Totem has kept thousands of Alaska workers and job sites warm with its heaters — wherever there’s a need for clean, safe, economical, high capacity heat to combat harsh Arctic conditions.

“We’ve earned our spot in the Alaska marketplace with responsive service, honesty, and professionalism,” says company Vice President Mike Huston. “And now it’s exciting to enter the global marketplace.”

VECO Sakhalin, a subsidiary of VECO Alaska, is awaiting delivery of 15 Totem 10, 1 million-BTU heater trailers, a pioneer product of Alaska’s oil fields. This order joins 13 units shipped to Russia for VECO in the fourth quarter of 2004.

All Totem heaters are portable, provide self-contained, clean, safe heat with no fumes or carbon monoxide and feature easy cold weather starting, Huston said. The Totem 10 has seen some recent improvements, including spill container lip; fuel line ball valves for immediate shutoff with leakage; two 500 Watt halogen work lights; extra electrical receptacles for auxiliary power; new door design for servicing combustion chamber without removal of heater; rubberized undercoating protection and a one-year warranty.

The South Korea Air Force has placed an initial order for 12 Totem 5-GSE self-contained heaters, a heater prototyped and developed especially for the Korean Air Force as ground support. The Totem 5-GSE is mobile, towable, produces 420,000 BTUs and is powered by a 10.5 HP Hatz diesel.

“The design is simple, lightweight and maneuverable,” says Huston. “It’s easy to use and maintain and is similar to the Herman-Nelson heater used in earlier days in Alaska. The long-range plan is for Totem to supply 300 of these heaters over a five year period.”

Totem pioneered the use of Herman-Nelson heaters in Alaska and has continued to design and build on the basic design, developing heaters that push fresh, clean, hot air that can weather the weather.

“We’re never wanting for a project,” says Huston. “Whatever the customer can dream, we can build, and we’re continually making design improvements.”