Somas instrument AB develops, produces and markets control – and on/off-valves made of stainless acid-proof steel for use all over the world. Somas is represented in many different business areas and has representatives worldwide.

Somas head office and manufacturing facility are in our own locales in Säffle. It is a family owned company run by the Hägg family with Peter Hägg as CEO and Lars Hägg as Purchasing/Logistics Manager. The head office is located along the E45 about 60 KM south of Karlstad. Several paper mills are situated in the vicinity, such as Nordic Paper, BillerudKorsnäs Gruvön, and Stora Enso Skoghall.

Somasis an acronym of Sliperi Och Mekaniska Arbeten Säffle (the Säffle Grinding and Mechanical Works). The company has a long and storied history as a manufacturer of valves and was founded in 1945 by Sven Ragnar Hägg and Folke Carlén. The main focus was initially grinding and polishing eating utensils.

Somas began working with valves in the late 1940’s because of a great need for valves within the process industry, which at that time mainly consisted of pulp and paper mills. This meant that the idea to manufacture valves made of acid-proof stainless materials was born early and has been a staple of the company’s valve catalogue since the beginning.

The first model of valve to be manufactured by Somas was a so called “throttle valve” which is what we today classify as a butterfly valve, the now massively popular ball segment valve was introduced in the 70’s and proved to be the solution for many applicational issues within the process industry.

Finally, when the metal-seated butterfly valve was introduced in the later part of the 1970’s there was a complete valve catalogue that had most of the process industries needs covered. Since then we have expanded our catalogue and today it consists of ball segment valves, ball valves, butterfly valves and pneumatic actuators with accompanying valve positioners.