XTEK wins European orders for ballistic armour

XTEK has won a $1.6 million order for specialist ballistic armour from a European customer that had purchased $2.6 million in armour in July.

The order – through XTEK’s US subsidiary HighCom Armor Solutions – comprises ‘many thousands’ of pieces of armour and comes after XTEK’s finished completing the first order in late September, the company said.

“To receive this second sizeable order now, so quickly after just completing the delivery of the first order, is great affirmation of the very high regard our life saving advanced body armour has with our end users,” XTEK Group CEO Scott Basham said.

“Concurrent with this new European order we have announced, I can also confirm our US and International sales teams continue to engage closely with multiple parties around the world to fulfil a number of other very urgent supply opportunities for our high-performance advanced ballistic armour products.”

While XTEK did not name the buyer, the company recently set up its first European sales office in Poland to be ‘squarely in the strategic theatre of support operations for Ukraine’, and as of January 2023, had supplied more than 40,000 sets of personal ballistic protection equipment since Ukraine was invaded.

The sale comes as XTEK announces plans to shutter its Australian operations and move manufacturing to Columbus, Ohio, in the US, the site of its HighCom arm.

XTEK to shut Adelaide site, move manufacturing to US

The Adelaide factory was opened in 2020. The number of jobs to be shed there was not given, with Group CEO Scott Basham telling AuManufacturing between a quarter and up to a third of key engineering staff working on its XTclave technology will be offered the opportunity to relocate.

Basham told AuManfuacturing at the time that building in Australia affected its ability to penetrate the U.S. market with its armour products, in particular the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

“The key issue is that while we do a lot with law enforcement agencies using our existing facility, the DoD have very strong regulations around where it can buy uniforms and apparel,” he said.

“Where it can buy products is dictated by Buy America Act and the Berry amendment, which are very prescriptive.

“The reality is we have exiting relations with U.S. Army Research Lab to collaborate and cooperate with research and development, they love the product we are making in XTclave but they currently can’t buy it because it is not made in America. This relocation solves that.”