A plant being set up in Qatar by one of the world leaders in the fibreglass pipe and technology market sees big prospects for business in the Gulf’s richest state.

The Future Pipe Group, which has 17 plants worldwide including several in the Gulf region, began construction work on its Qatar subsidiary in July of this year and expects the facilities to be completed by April 2006. 
Future Pipe Industries (FPI) Qatar will produce glass reinforced plastic (GRP), glass reinforced vinylester (GRV) and glass reinforced epoxy (GRE) pipe systems with applications in the water and desalination, sewerage, drainage, petrochemical, power and offshore and onshore oil and gas sectors. 
Diameters for GRP pipes will range up to 4,000 mm, while those for GRE will be a maximum of 1,600 mm. The production includes all types of fittings. The first year’s production will be approximately 20,000 tonnes, half of the designed capacity of 40,000 tonnes annually.
Dalal Mott MacDonald designed the plant while Al Alia Trading & Contracting Company (Butler) is the construction contractor.
Strong business sales in Qatar prompted the Future Group to convert its presence from a sales office to a fully-fledged manufacturing facility.
According to area sales representative Iskandar Ghazal, the company delivered its pipe systems for two expansions at Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) and for Qatar Fertiliser Company’s (Qafco) fourth expansion. It is currently supplying to Qatar Steel Company and has recently received a contract to meet the requirements of the W4/LNG-1 plant at Ras Laffan.
Future Pipe has been fulfilling Qatar contracts with consignments shipped from any of its eight plants in the Gulf including those in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman. The group has six factories in the Europe, Middle East (outside the Gulf) and Africa region, and three in the US.
Along with the Future Pipe Group, FPI Qatar has 30 Qatari investors including the Qatar Industrial Development Bank. The share capital is QR48 million ($13.1 million).
Group companies located in North Lebanon and Dubai offer the latest in thermoset and thermoplastic technologies. They produce glass reinforced plastic pipes and tanks, unplasticised polyvinyl chloride  (uPVC) pipes and polyethylene pipes.
The Group recently introduced high-pressure spoolable reinforced composite (SRC) pipes ranging in sizes from 25 to 100 mm inside diameter in lengths of up to 6 km.  The company manufactures SRC products in Houston, Texas, and the pipes are available in operating pressures up to 2,250 psig (150 bars) and operating temperatures up to 99 degrees C depending on the liner used.
Future Pipe Industries Lebanon produces concrete pipes, reinforced and non-reinforced, for diameters 300 mm through 1,200 mm.
One of the Future Pipe companies is a leading manufacturer of seals and gaskets that are utilised in conjunction with various types of pipes. The company has a product range that covers gaskets for GRP pipes, fibre cement (FC) pipes, reinforced concrete pipes and uPVC pipes that provide strong sealing to fluid transmit lines of pressure and non-pressure for both above ground and below-ground installations.