Aluminium extrusion products leader Aluminium Products Company (Alupco) will diversify its product range to sell value-added products for the transportation, energy and engineering sectors, says its general manager Ibrahim M Al-Rashed.

Al-Rashed, who assumed his post in August of last year, also said the company is targeting a production and sales volume of 65,000 tonnes, this year, 25 per cent higher than in 2006.
As much as 70 per cent of Alupco’s products are sold in the domestic market, leaving 30 per cent for exports, mainly to the Middle East with a part going to Europe.
Among recent developments was the addition of a wood-finish painting line of 1,800 tonnes per year (tpy) capacity. The company earlier installed its fourth extrusion press in Dammam and a chemical brightening plant.
“Our manufacturing plant in Jeddah has started selling extrusion dyes to external customers after meeting the requirements of Alupco’s Dammam and Jeddah plants,” said Al-Rashed.
The most serious concern he described is “the record high LME (London Metals Exchange) aluminium price, which has almost doubled since September 2005.” He said the upturn had put great strain on the cost of production.
“Another major problem is from the dumping of substandard aluminium products in the Saudi market due to a lack of implementation of Saso (Saudi Arabian Standards Organisation) standards for architectural aluminium applications,” he said.
Al-Rashed indicated that the company would expand its exports to Europe, the US and Canada. He would like the figure to surge to 30 per cent in Western markets.
The focus would also be on engineered products such as complete system profiles rather than the production of commercial quality extrusions, which is an intensely competitive market, he said.
The shift in focus is necessary because commercial extrusions are targeted at small housing projects where the buyers’ major consideration is price, not quality.
Another dimension to the new strategy is developing a greater rapport with customers through regular meetings and adopting an open-door policy with competitors to look at possibilities of mergers and acquisitions.
Al-Rashed says liaising with customers on a one-to-one basis is important in order to analyse their needs, solve problems and provide support.  He also expressed the need to develop closer ties with fabricators to enhance market share.
2006 was not as good as the previous year, he said, as demand was mainly for kitchen profiles which Alupco’s large presses were not suitable for. There was also a slowdown in construction activity in Saudi Arabia and therefore supply exceeded demand. With more extruders set to operate in the region, Alupco believes there is need for an aluminium association that would play the role of a regulatory body.
The range of Alupco products embraces profiles in mill, anodised, polyester powder-coated and chemically brightened finishes as per customers’ requirements. These are mainly used in the fabrication of windows, doors and curtain-walls. The company also offers specially designed profiles for the automotive, electrical (lighting fixtures) and furniture industries as well as for specific applications such as signboards and crash barriers.
Its Dammam plant has four extrusion presses – including the largest press in the Middle East – with a total production capacity of 40,000 tpy of aluminium profiles. It has an anodising line, two vertical painting lines and a chemical brightening line.
The 35,000 tpy Jeddah facility has three presses and is equipped with an anodising line and a vertical and a horizontal painting line. In addition, it has a cut-to-size facility, which can supply customers with profiles at the required lengths with +/- 0.5 mm tolerance and a state-of-the-art dye manufacturing plant with a production capacity of 2,500 extrusion dies per year.
Alupco designs and produces aluminium profiles and accomplishes surface treatment with various finishes as per international standards: EN (European), DIN (German), BS (British) and SASO (Saudi Arabia), he says.
Alupco was the first aluminium extrusion company in the Middle East to gain the ISO 9001 certification in 1995.
Some of the region’s most prestigious projects have used Alupco extrusions including NCCI Ta’awoniyyah Co-operative Insurance, Kingdom Centre and the Al Faisaliah Centre, all in Riyadh; the Burj Al Arab and Al Murooj Complex in Dubai; the National Bank of Abu Dhabi in Abu Dhabi; the Khalifa Stadium in Doha; the Telecommunication Tower in Kuwait; Al Anwar Towers in Sharjah, and National Bank of Bahrain, in Bahrain.
Its more recent projects include Raffles Hotel, The Palm Island, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Mall of the Emirates, Shatha Tower, Horizon Tower and Burj Dubai-Old Town, all in Dubai; Expo Towers in Sharjah; Arraya Centre in Kuwait; Buildex and Al Ma’athar Towers in Saudi Arabia; Al Areen and Al Dafna Towers in Qatar and Beirut Marina Tower in Lebanon.