Zamil Steel Industries of Dammam has secured a contract to supply and erect one of the largest single factory buildings in Europe.

The building, located in Goole in the United Kingdom, is owned by Guardian Glass Industries (UK) Ltd., a subsidiary of Guardian Industries Corp., a leading worldwide manufacturer of float glass and fabricated glass products for commercial and residential construction industries.

"It is great to be part of the team that will build this enormous float glass factory. The 65,000 sq m building has to be designed, fabricated, shipped and erected, with all its accessories to a very tight schedule," says Maher Hajaij, the general manager of Zamil Steel in Poland, who is responsible for the project. "This is quite a challenge taking into consideration the size of the building and the harsh winter weather conditions at Goole".

Erection of the building is expected to be completed by the end of April 2003. The 65,000m building is more than 600m long and reaches 150m at its widest. The building height varies between 9.5 and 11.5m.

"The building contains multiple cranes with load capacities exceeding 32 metric tonnes. The cranes run over huge long crane beams throughout the building. In spite of their extraordinary length, each of these beams will be fabricated and transported to site as one piece, without any bolted splices," adds Hajaij.

This is the second building that Guardian Glass Industries has awarded to Zamil Steel. The first building is located in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, and was erected more than five years ago.

Zamil Steel is the largest pre-engineered steel building company in Asia, Africa and Europe and serves its customers through a network of 40 area offices worldwide. The company already operates several offices in Europe and has two factories in Egypt and Vietnam.

The company's Dammam facility has the capacity to produce 6,500 tonnes (equivalent to 200,000 sq m of steel buildings every month).

Over the years, the PEB division's customer base has included North American companies such as Bechtel, Flour Daniel, Foster Wheeler, General Electric International, Black & Veatch, Braden, Prtichard, Parsons and McDonnell Douglas. Japanese customers include Chiyoda Petrostar, Hitachi Zosen Corporation, JGC, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui Engineering and Taisei. Supplies have also gone to European companies such as DeSmet, Foster Wheeler SPA, Snamprogetti, Dywidag, Technimont, Technip, Saipem, CMI and Voest Alpine and to Korean firms including Samsung, Daelim Engineering, LG Construction and Shinwha.

During 2003, Zamil Steel plans to strengthen its presence in Europe and increase its market share in 10 European countries, where it is currently active.

Zamil Steel is a unit of Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC), a publicly traded company, which includes two other units, Zamil Air Conditioners and Zamil Glass. ZIIC has manufacturing units in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Vietnam, Austria and Italy.