EXETER – The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 opened up new markets for the Exeter-based industrial knitting firm Syfilco Ltd.  
Now, another major spill in the Gulf of Mexico has increased need for the company’s products many times over.  
Syfilco, a family-owned business with over 30 years in the Exeter area, manufactures polyester fabric sleeves and polyethylene netting sleeves that are used to create long-snake-like products called "oil booms."
Syfilco manufactures only the sleeves, which are filled with absorbent materials to create booms used to contain the spill in the Gulf.
Production of sleeves at Syfilco has doubled due to the spill, causing the company to buy new equipment and dust off older equipment that had been mothballed, according to vice-president Andy de Boer.
De Boer said his company can produce 160 miles of boom per week and has been increasing that to 215 miles per week.
“As the new machinery comes on line, it might be as high as 300 miles per week,” he said.
Demand is expected to last nine months – the timeline given for the clean-up in the Gulf, according to de Boer. He said there will also be a need to replenish emergency reserves depleted due to the spill.
“They’ve depleted the reserves, so we’ll be filling that pipeline again, so to speak,” de Boer said.
Syfilco also manufactures agricultural drainage filters, hay bale netting and shade fabric, among other things.
The company specializes in manufacturing bulk fabrics for producers or distributors who incorporate the fabrics into finished products or end-use markets, according to the Syfilco website.
DeBoer said the company entered the oil boom market after the Exxon Valdez, when they were contacted by customers in the United States.
Some of those customers have gone by the wayside, while others are still there and still others have started up, de Boer said.
Syfilco has been supplying customers in the oil boom market on an ongoing basis for about 10 years, but the market exploded due to the spill in the Gulf.
“Our customers have contacted us (after the spill), checking to see what we have for inventories initially, and then obviously notifying us that they’re going to need as much production as we can give them,” de Boer said.
De Boer declined to say what the recent spill will mean to Syfilco in terms of profit but said increased sales of oil boom sleeves will be offset by the new machine purchases they've made.
“We probably wouldn’t have made these machine purchases if this wasn’t the situation,” he said. “Otherwise with the economic times, we would probably be a little more hesitant to invest in new equipment. So that’s been a bonus for us, I guess.”
DeBoer is part of a second generation of owners at Syfilco, which includes brother Tony de Boer (the company president) and sister Margaret Knip.
Their father Sybren de Boer started the company in 1979, converting a former grass seed mill into a knitting mill.