Masaood John Brown's (MJB) new service facility at the Jebel Ali Free Zone has built on a tradition that originated 21 years ago when the company began to provide maintenance support to customers who had purchased gas turbines from John Brown Engineering of Scotland. The Jebel Ali facility expects to conduct total turbine and compressor rotor refurbishment and the repair of rotating blades including the application of aluminised coatings - one of the first in the region to do that.
MJB will also continue to provide maintenance support for gas turbine owners in the UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. The company is owned 51 per cent by Mohammed Bin Masaood and 49 per cent by Chromalloy UK, part of the Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corporation and the world's largest independent gas turbine company. Chromalloy is renowned for its technological excellence in component repair, high temperature coatings and spare parts manufacture.
MJB's history goes back to the late 1960s when John Brown Engineering (JBE) of Scotland and Rahma Masaood provided and installed the first industrial frame type gas turbine in the Middle East, purchased by the Abu Dhabi government. The relationship grew stronger and, in 1979, MJB was formed as a joint-venture company between Mohammed bin Masood & Sons of the UAE (51 per cent) and John Brown Engineering (49 per cent). The new venture started quietly in Dubai to provide maintenance support for gas turbines from John Brown Engineering. A year later, it opened another office in Abu Dhabi to support an expanding fleet of gas turbines in the water and electricity department and the Adnoc group.
With the region experiencing an expansion of the power infrastructure, Masaood John Brown was able to offer immediate response to gas turbine owners, demonstrating its flexibility by offering clients in the UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar assistance not only for John Brown turbines but also for turbines made by other manufacturers. Since those days, the company has established itself as one of the major after-sales support entities in the region. To date the company has provided overhaul support for 100 different gas turbines in the Lower Gulf.
In 1996 Kvaerner of Norway purchased Trafalgar House, which owned John Brown Engineering, and in 1999/2000, General Electric of the US purchased the Kvaerner Energy business but it did not include the sale of the 49 per cent shareholding in Masaood John Brown. Mohammed Bin Masaood, preferring to pursue an expansionist and international strategy, purchased the 49 per cent shareholding with the intention of selling it to one of the many interested potential partners who were awaiting developments. The successful partner was Chromalloy, UK.
An MJB affiliate, MJB International, is providing similar services in the rest of the Middle East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Both companies are supported by the UK technical and logistics operation, based in Glasgow, Scotland. Chromalloy also operates Turbine Services Limited (TSL), which serves gas turbine owners in other parts of the world.
"It is the intention of MJB, MJBI and TSL to offer a comprehensive after-sales service from highly experienced personnel at a competitive market price. In a rapidly changing market, where the consolidation of major service providers tends to reduce customer options, we remain an alternative choice for support services," said MJB general manager Steve Winton. "This choice is not applicable only to the gas turbine equipment itself, as it is our intention to extend this to the balance of plant and power generation equipment. We would like to offer owners a service which caters for other rotating equipment, and we are very pleased to announce that a number of complimentary industry leaders have established co-operation agreements or preferred sub-contractor agreements with us."
The parties include Osborne (UK) which will enter into a joint venture with MJB to repair white metal bearings in Jebel Ali, ABB Automation which will jointly develop a controls system retrofit product and OGJ Exchange which will work with MJB to source competitive spares, plant and equipment. Alstom Power is co-operating as MJB's major subcontractor for the balance of plant products including electrical equipment, generators and steam and boiler equipment.
