Leppo Rents, a Bobcat dealer with six Ohio locations, recently opened a new rental company in Carrollton, Ohio, to focus on the oil and gas industry. The new rental center is called Razor Rents to differentiate it from Leppo Rents, because Razor will have a unique focus, specializing in equipment for contractors working on extracting methane, propane, butane gas and oil from the Utica Shale. Razor Rents will not function as a Bobcat dealer, although it is renting Bobcat products.
Razor, which is managed by Jason Shankleton, is primarily renting JLG aerial work platforms and telehandlers, as well as Bobcat skid-steer loaders, track loaders and mini-excavators, Doosan generators, light towers, compaction equipment and ground-heating equipment.
“We are not offering large earthmoving equipment such as big excavators at Razor,” Leppo owner Dale Leppo told RER. “We had been servicing that oil and gas market from our Canton store, which is about 45 minutes away. But the people working in that area need more immediate response. It’s a very specialized, narrow niche. Instead of going after hundreds of customers, we’re going after dozens.”
Razor Rents, while still part of the Leppo Group, has its own unique logo with a pumping jack to illustrate the oil-and-gas emphasis.
Leppo added that the state of Ohio has estimated that the Utica Shale could add $6 billion a year to the gross state product for as long as a generation. “We hope they are right!” he said.
