Indoor sandblasting comes to St. Martin

PHOTO: Brandon Chatham and Andre Fontova cut the ribbon on a new company in St. Martin Parish. Blast Tech provides the oil and gas industry and others with corrosion protection applied in an enclosed environment. The state-of-the-art facility is located on Maurice Rd. in Broussard.(Ken Grissom)

At a time when oilfield service companies are cutting back, an industrial painting service is opening up in the midst of St. Martin Parish’s U.S. 90 commercial corridor.
Blast Tech, which held its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday, April 29, opens their doors to provide corrosion protection services, including spray coatings, in a fully enclosed, 22,000-square-foot plant.
“We are excited to streamline the way blasting and painting is performed, in Acadiana, by introducing real time work flow tracking software and helping our client’s expedite their schedules with our indoor facility,” said cofoounder Andre Fontova.
Blast Tech is operating indoors with 60-foot long by 20-foot wide by 18-foot tall blast and paint booths. By utilizing a climate controlled paint booth, and being 100 percent weather independent, coating cure times can be reduced allowing customers to begin operating their equipment and generating revenue more quickly.
Blast Tech LLC, is a privately held coatings company founded in 2014.
“We plan to grow as we obtain work, we are currently a company of nine now and would like to be as many as 25,” Fontova said. “We offer health benefits to all employees, and our facility is environmentally friendly as all work is performed indoors.
“With a focus on safety and quality the facility has abundant lighting and all our work enters one end raw and exits the other other completed, without any exposure to the weather – which allows us to coat materials during inclement weather or after the sun goes down. Also, by using steel grit as our blast media we have a 98 percent reduction to any exposure to silica which reduces the amount of dust generated greatly.”