BOSSES at Oxfordshire companies with links in the Middle East have revealed how the ongoing crises are hitting their businesses hard.

Abingdon freight forwarders Michel Hurel Transport, which specialises in road, sea and air freight transport to North Africa, has lost tens of thousands of pounds in the past few weeks.

Operations director Alistair Beveridge said: “Tunisia hit us hardest when the ports and airports closed.

“We lost out for three weeks, but now the freight business is coming back to us.”

The firm lost between £30,000-£40,000 of Tunisian business in January due to the pro-democracy demonstrations.

And last week the company lost more than £25,000 in revenue when it was forced to cancel the departure of four trailers destined for Libya, as a result of the anti-Gaddafi protests there.

Mr Beveridge said: “Libya, which was a developing market, now looks as though it will be a closed market for the coming few months.”

The company, which is heavily involved with the oilfield industry, employs 10 people at its Abingdon headquarters, six in Houston, Texas, and another four in Marseilles, France.

It makes several deliveries a week to Tunisia, which has a growing offshore oil industry, largely through the port of La Goulette, near Tunis.

Until recently, the firm also organised deliveries to Libya – which has a potentially huge oil industry – about once a month.

Mr Beveridge said: “The Libyan situation has not affected us much – yet. But of course it is worrying, particularly as oil companies are withdrawing their expatriate personnel.”

Meanwhile, Banbury-based Westminster Group, which has an annual turnover approaching £10m, has seen its business of supplying scanning and security equipment to Libya hit.

Chief executive Peter Fowlersaid: “We have seen some equipment tied up and not reaching its destination. Egypt has caused us most trouble so far.”

He added that all the equipment the firm supplied was “non-offensive”, though some, such as radio jamming equipment used to detect roadside bombs, needs an export licence from the UK Government.

Westminster Group employs 80 people at in Banbury and maintains very close contact with 85 agents abroad, supplying governments, banks, police forces, oil companies and airports.

The company has just won contracts worth £275,000, including orders to supply airport scanning equipment to the Libyan and Algerian governments, and blast protection equipment to an unnamed company in Egypt.