Metals

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) has signed a technology agreement with Montefibre for a fully integrated world scale carbon fibre project in Saudi Arabia.

Global Pipe Company (GPC), a Saudi-German joint venture, announced that the new production facility being built in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia will be complete by Q2 2012.

Essar Steel Processing and Distribution, part of Essar Steel, has opened a service centre facility that will service the Middle East and neighboring regions.

The Steel Service Centre facility located in Jebel Ali Free Zone South has a processing capacity of 250,000 tonnes per annum. The facility comprises three hot rolled cut to length, HR Slitter and CR & GI combination slitting & CTL line.

Processed material will be shipped to countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain by road. For local customers of UAE who are presently entirely dependent on imports, it will supply JIT deliveries.

Strategy

Mr Vikram Amin, ED, Sales & Marketing said "Middle East is a natural market for us since we are located on the west coast of India. The facility at Dubai is part of our distribution strategy to enhance our reach to customers and improve our customer centricity, reliability of delivery and thus supports us in becoming the steel maker of choice for large and small customers."

This is the third facility after the one in the UK for the European region and one in Indonesia that cater to East Asian market. With this, Essar Steel Processing and Distribution has ramped up its international service centre capacity to one million tonne per annum.

Image credit to setlinings.com

Emirates Aluminium (Emal) is nearing final approval for an expansion of its aluminium smelter in Abu Dhabi at a cost of up to US$4.5 billion as it prepares for strong global demand growth in the next four years.