Gulf Aluminium Rolling Mills (Garmco), the largest facility of its kind in the Middle East, plans to set up new subsidiaries to operate service centres abroad and a rolling mill in the Arabian Gulf.

Acting chief executive officer Adel Hamad Abdulrahman said the board had given the green light to study many proposals for setting up subsidiaries and talks with potential parties would begin soon. “As is our policy, we usually plan to take a controlling stake of 75 per cent in such operations,” he said. According to the official, the new rolling mill will have a total capacity of 460,000 tpy of coils, sheets and circles.
It will help Garmco meet its commitments to its global customers. The fact that production will take place in the Arabian Gulf in the neighbourhood of a smelter presupposes it will readily obtain primary raw metal, which in the past was not easy to obtain.
Garmco recently opened a subsidiary in Shanghai, China, which will serve as a service centre.  Garmco Nakagawa, owned 75 per cent by Garmco with the remainder stake contributed by the Japanese firm Nakagawa, will add value to finished products imported from Gamco’s Bahrain plant. The service centre will slit and cut coils and sheets in accordance with customers’ requirements.
“Our strategy is to have a presence in the market and access to customers. Every industry has its own local issues and with local staff understanding their local culture, they will be able to address customer issues in a more effective way than if the issues were addressed by the head office in Bahrain,” said Adel Hamad.
In 2006 the company sold around 1,800 tonnes in the Chinese market, a figure it is not satisfied with considering the potential. The Shanghai Service Centre will serve as a versatile business outlet, its products covering both Garmco and non-Garmco products and including steel and other metal items as well.
Elsewhere the company operates service centres in Melbourne, Singapore and Thailand.
The company also sells directly to the Middle East and Europe, each region taking about 36,000 tpy. Europe has strong potential, so Garmco plans to open a sales office on the continent. 
The company’s strategy is to identify high-potential areas and open sales offices and service centres where necessary. It is busy establishing markets in advance of the big capacity increase which is under planning. In addition to marketing studies, Garmco is conducting engineering and financial studies for the proposed expansion. It will determine whether it should opt for direct casting or continuous casting as also the size and returns on the investment. For the time being, Garmco plans to expand capability to produce 460,000 tpy against the current capacity of 165,000 tpy.
Garmco products are also dispatched directly to some customers in the Far East, Indian Subcontinent, Africa and South America.
Garmco sold 156,000 tonnes of various products in 2006 – an increase of 8,000 tonnes compared to the previous year. Garmco makes cold-rolled coils and sheets in AA1000, AA3000 and AA5000 series alloys for a wide range of applications in gauges from 0.25 mm to 3.2 mm and up to 1,560 mm wide. It also makes aluminium circles in a range of alloys and tempers and aluminium foil.
 In 2006 the company sold 125,000 tonnes of coils, 24,000 tonnes of sheets and 6,000 tonnes of circles. They were delivered in standard and non-standard sizes.
 The foil plant makes household foil, fin, lidding, and semi-rigid containers feedstock. Current production is 18,000 tpy, but an ongoing expansion will take production capacity there to 35,000 tpy in two years’ time.
Garmco has three subsidiaries in the US, one of which is Midamerica Extrusion at Indianapolis, Indiana.
Midamerica operates a 3,500-tonne press with an annual output exceeding 10,000 tonnes of finished product. Capabilities range from the extrusion of the simplest stock shapes to the most customised design. The plant has the flexibility to manufacture products from a 12-inch sign panel to a half-inch rod. This flexibility and the unique ability to extrude using two different container sizes mean that uniform tight tolerances can be held for both small and large shapes.
Products from Midamerica are good for widely diverse applications including stadium seating, material handling, playground equipment, automotive, truck, trailer, architectural and commercial lighting. The company locally sources its ingot requirements.
Another US subsidiary, Republic Foil Inc, at Danbury-Connecticut, is a leading supplier of electrolytic capacitor foil worldwide. Republic Foil rolls down to 4.5 microns - the thinnest commercially produced aluminum foil in the world. Besides the electrical applications of capacitor foil and strip conductor, Republic Foil is a supplier to the flexible packaging industry. It supplies eyelet stock, finstock, cable wrap, specialty bright sheet and foil. These and other items for industrial applications are supplied to exacting product and service standards with short lead times being a feature of the operation.
The third US subsidiary is Garmco USA, also in Danbury. It sells all Garmco core products from Bahrain through its own dedicated sales team.
 “Quality, competitive pricing and reliability are rolled into one at Gulf Aluminium Rolling Mill Co,” says a company spokesman. “The quality and reliability of our aluminium sheet and coil succeed even in those parts of the world protected by local tariffs. From high-profile architecture to stylish upmarket holloware, Garmco aluminium is helping the world roll into a bright, clean future.”
The company was formed in 1981 following a decree issued by the then Amir of Bahrain, the late Sheikh Isa Bin Salman Al Khalifa. The project was undertaken together with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, and Qatar.
Kaiser Engineering, USA, constructed the plant while machinery was installed by Kobe Steel of Japan, which also undertook the start-up operation and the training of local staff at one of their aluminium plants in Japan.
Garmco produced its first 20,000 tonnes of rolled aluminium in 1986. It uses primary metal from its neighbour Aluminum Bahrain (Alba). In 2006, it secured 155,000 tonnes of Alba metal and produced another 70,000 tonnes of rolling slab from scrap remelt.
At one point in mid-2006, the London Metal Exchange price of aluminium was $3,300 per tonne, a 17-year high. “We did well despite the higher prices. We expect a six per cent increase in profit in 2006,” said Adel Hamad.
“We are totally committed to our longstanding customers and we have huge plans for developing human resources across the board.”
Already 85 per cent of the workforce is Bahraini. “We are only a 20-year-old company, but have managed to come up to a high level of Bahrainisation – faster than other large companies in the kingdom. We are also technologically sophisticated and require a lot of efforts to retain the highly skilled employees,” observed Adel Hamad