In conversation with Euro Fence Coatings

Trio recently sat down with Navid Masud, Director at Euro Fence Coatings, to discuss the company’s efforts to minimize energy risk and future-proof their business. 

Based in the UK, Euro Fence Coatings has been providing high-quality coating services to its customers for over three decades. The company’s diverse project portfolio includes engineering buildings, manufacturing structures, data centers, hospitals, universities, high-speed trains, and more. 

Trio: What were some of the challenges that Euro Fence Coatings faced in Q1 2025, as well as the impacts of those challenges? 

Navid Masud: I’m in Sales and I also keep an eye on energy prices. Energy is an important component of the powder coating process. It’s an energy-rich process, so any variations in energy prices have a direct effect on our bottom line and I need to be aware of how the market is moving. In the last few years, we have seen ups and downs, and this has implications for small businesses like ours because of the energy component. 

Earlier this year, our company faced challenges that came along with the energy price spikes. When your contract is running out, it can feel like an insurmountable challenge. When the prices spike, there is no parallel. What can you do when the prices are 10 times higher than they normally are? You have to grin and bear it. But we survived and lived to fight another day. 

Trio: Can you talk about your partnership with Trio and how the Trio and Euro Fence Coatings teams worked together to address specific challenges and risks, both in the near and longer term? 

Navid Masud: We have a long history with Trio (formerly Alfa Energy), beginning in 2008. There was an energy spike that year – oil went up $150 a barrel and my previous energy broker exposed us to that and there was a big mighty fall. That’s when we decided to make a change. We were growing, and we needed a more reliable firm that had more options available to secure energy supply.  

It used to be a very steady market – there was barely any movement. But things changed starting around 2005, and ever since then, volatility within the market has gone from one extreme to the other. Now, there is so much volatility in the market that you need a future risk cover to manage the risk. We’re now looking into 2026, 2027, and 2028, and we need to have meaningful risk cover. 

Trio: What were the benefits and opportunities that were uncovered as a result of Euro Fence Coating’s partnership with Trio? 

Navid Masud: We knew we needed a partner firm who has a foot in the market, who has access to major suppliers. Instead of agreeing to a price today for the next two or three years, Trio figured out a variable contract where we decide, where we are always in the market to buy the tranche of gas we need. 

Trio gave us more options, more flexibility, more strength, more control of our price instead of agreeing to a price and then forgetting about it, which could be terrible for us. In Trio, we found a partner who was big enough and strong enough to look after a firm of our size. 

Energy is a very important component, and we need to keep a strict eye on it. With Trio, we have access to the market. If we feel the market is changing, we can take immediate action instead of being left at the mercy of the market. 

Trio has the right tools and the right contracts available that give us that comfort. There’s always risk in the market, and you can only plan to an extent, and Trio gives us that facility. Each month, we have a catchup with our risk manager, where we discuss actual performance alongside the forecast. And they are always within 95% of our forecast. It is working very well, and we are very lucky that we have a firm through which we have access to the market in such a diversified and variable way.