The Bramco touch: granite columns at the Sheraton in Bahrain

The Bahrain-based diversified Bramco Group, which has interests in mining, metallurgy and manufacturing, will be paying more attention to metallurgy in the Gulf, a senior official has said.

The group, established in 1977 by Indian entrepreneur Vinay Dewan, operates a non-stick cookware plant, a marble and granite processing facility and an aluminium-melting unit. It also manufactures sacrificial anodes, operates facilities for metal recycling and runs a steel rolling mill.
Its activities also cover glass-reinforced concrete, fabrication and machining, water desalination plants, supply and installation of weighing equipment, supply of Siematic kitchens from Germany, shipping and transportation and the manufacture of glass lids and Bakelite handles.
“We have a strong presence in the downstream aluminium industry. Aluminium alloys finished by Bramco are exported to Toyota in Japan, to the US oil industry and around the Gulf,” Dewan was quoted as saying recently while giving only a few examples of his group’s value addition in aluminium.
Anupam H Mittal, Bramco’s senior vice president, said the group would expand its steel making facilities in the near future.  One of the group companies, Steelmould Sharjah Ltd, operates a steel rolling mill that makes plain flat bars, serrated bars, deformed bars and twisted square bars and decorative bars. Mittal said Steelmould’s turnover was expected to grow about 20 per cent in 2005. The products are consumed mostly in the UAE but also exported to Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Another metallurgy company, Scrapmould specialises in metal recycling in steel and aluminium. The company buys scrap for reselling or for melting as steel, for which it has an induction steel-melting furnace. The scrap mostly goes to the Indian Subcontinent. The steel from the scrap is sold in GCC countries, while aluminium alloys head mainly to Saudi Arabia .
“We are now setting up a continuous steel billet casting unit which will be opened in 2006. Then we’ll export steel and not scrap,” said Mittal. The company also has a metal recycling plant in Oman called SPECO.
The group’s marble and granite business is progressing well, according to Mittal. “We do the cladding and flooring of buildings and monuments. The marble is imported from Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Oman and India. From India we import only the finest grades.
“We started the business 16 years ago and it is growing fast. We have waterjet cutting machines, a 3D sculpting machine for tile making and a calibrating machine.”
Bramco describes itself as a pioneer in the quarrying business in Bahrain. “The hallmark of our business was our involvement in the construction of the 26-km-long Bahrain-Saudi Arabia causeway, for which we laid out more than 2 million cu m of rock. Recently a similar contribution was made for the Durrat highway” a group spokesman said.
The company provides a complete range of products from selected stones cut to specifications to intricate waterjet patterms, external cladding, worktops, furniture, mosaic, tumblestones and cobblestones.
It specialises in floor designs, carved capitals, columns and bases and custom-made staircases and balustrades, featured panels for walls and floors, counter and vanity tops, carved parapets, fluted columns, exquisite fireplaces and furniture.
Among prestigious products the company has worked on in Bahrain are Bahrain Islamic Bank, Bahrain Telecommunications Company, Sakhir Palace Office Development (external pavements), Sheraton Hotel (columns), Regency Intercontinental lobby, Diplomat Hotel refurbishment, Al Ahli Bank headquarters, Shaikh Isa Library, Al Arain Resort and Spa and the World Trade Centre (City Garden).
Overseas, its projects include the NCC Building in Qatar; Yamama Palace Riyadh; Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque and Clock Tower at Sultan Qaboos University, both in Muscat; Finsbury Tower, Hyde Park Intercontinental Hotel and Kensington Court Building, all in London; Venkateshwara Temple and Swaminarayan Temple, both in New Jersey, USA, and a building in Park Avenue, New York, USA, and a BMW showroom in Germany.
The company that makes Bramco’s sacrificial anodes is Wilson Walton Gulf Ltd. The anodes, for which aluminium is sourced at Alba, are used for corrosion protection in shipping and in offshore and onshore pipelines. “Demand is growing and the competition is tight, but we have maintained our production levels,” said Mittal. “We make the anodes by gravity die casting. The market is growing and we are retaining our piece of the cake.”
Bramco’s non-stick cookware products are quite well known in the Gulf’s supermarkets. The cookware plant, opened in 1995, is owned by Bahrain Industries WLL, but the products are manufactured with German technology in the name of BAF Germany with BAF Cuisinelle as the brand name.
The company makes 10,000 utensils per month, around 40 per cent of which are frying pans. Last year it produced at the rate of 8,000 monthly. The plant was the outcome of Bramco’s acquisition of an old German company and the technology that came along with the sale. The plant in Germany is still running. Some 80 per cent of the Bahrain-made cookware is exported, mainly to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman. Mittal said the company makes spot sales from time to time. Last year, for instance, it sold 3,000 utensils in Jordan. The company hopes to better organise its distribution network. “The biggest market is the UAE and we’re there in all the supermarkets,” says Mittal. “We managed to confront the competition and gain a share. In the near future we hope to produce 12,000 per month, and can go up to 15,000 per month with the current capacity, a level we will reach in 2006. It is obvious we will have to expand after that.”
Raw material for the cookware comes from Alba and Garmco. Alba provides the primary metal, which is used for pressure die casting, while Garmco supplies the circles.
The cookware sold in the Gulf is made through the deep drawing process, for which Garmco’s circles are used.  The company also makes 6,000 pieces in pressure die cast, which are exported to the BAF Germany plant.  Mittal says the market in the Gulf is yet to be introduced to such material, which also happens to be more expensive.
In 2006, Bramco expects to introduce a superior range of utensils under the brand name Cuisinelle Exquisite. The pressure die cast procedure will be adopted for the new range, which Mittal says will be better in terms of weight and coating. “We’ll launch it and see how it fares. The question of fixing a capacity for the production will be taken up later.”