Steely boss Patrick Joy has plenty left in tank

Patrick Joy, the founder of Suretank, sat in the harbour of Newport News in Virginia last April looking at US navy aircraft carriers out on the bay. "The guy that was showing us around pointed to them and said, ‘Your tanks are on those,’" Joy says.

The containers that are manufactured in Suretank's factory in Dunleer, Co Louth, hold liquid oxygen needed for planes taking off.

Suretank delivered three containers to the US navy last year, and in the floor above Joy's office at the Dunleer headquarters two brokers are closing a deal with the company's financial team on a further two. "Over the next five years they are putting tanks on each of their aircraft carriers and we are now approved vendors," Joy says.