One of the Gulf’s most successful steel fabricators is expanding its facilities and expects to venture into overseas markets in the near future.

Yanbu Steel Company (YSC) has so far concentrated on Saudi contracts including those for Sabic and Saudi Aramco projects but with additional space and equipment it is confident it will be able to take on contracts from abroad.
“YSC is expanding its fabrication space within its current facility and is planning to expand later in 2007 into the Eastern Province.  We have also invested heavily in new equipment including cranage,” said general manager David MacPhee.
He commented that the expansion would enable it to cope with the current construction boom in the local refinery, petrochemical and water sectors. “As such, YSC is not yet looking outside the border although this can be an aim in the medium term. We are now capable of taking on major turnkey storage tank projects of well over $50 million,” MacPhee added.
YSC specialises in the engineering design, fabrication, erection and painting of very large storage tanks and pressure vessels. The company offers products and services in steel fabrication that industries such as oil and gas, petrochemicals and water would require. As well as steel storage tanks and pressure vessels, the product range covers spherical storage, process columns, structural steel, industrial services, blasting, and painting and scaffolding.
YSC also offers engineering, procurement and construction services related to its core tank business and including civil works; piping, electrical and instrumentation work and commissioning.
The company’s newest line of business is the fabrication of evaporators for the rapidly expanding desalination industry in Saudi Arabia.
YSC was formed in 1983 as a subsidiary of America’s PDM Inc, but was bought over by Saudis in 1994. It assumed its present name in 2001 and is approved as a vendor/contractor by, among others, Saudi Aramco, Sabic, Saline Water Conversion Company (SWCC), Saudi Electric Company, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery and Saudi Aramco Shell Refinery.
Its workshop area covers 20,000 sq m in the Red Sea industrial city of Yanbu and the equipment it has installed encompasses the gamut of its operations including CNC welding and cutting machinery, a 600-tonne press, a dish head spinning machine, shearing machines and rolling machines. Over 1,000 workers serve at the Yanbu site.
Over the years, YSC developed extensive state-of-the-art in-house blasting and painting facilities and has carried out one of the largest blasting and painting contracts in the Middle East in support of a long-term mega tank project,. The company recently formed a blasting and painting entity able to execute client blasting and painting works on a standalone basis.  
Yanbu Steel Company operates an overall quality assurance system certified by the British Standards Institute (BSI) to ISO 9001:2000 and, in tandem with ISO 9001:2000, it operates product-specific (pressure vessels) quality assurance systems under the certification of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
YSC is much in demand thanks to its varied expertise.

Tanks
YSC has developed the expertise to produce tanks of world quality. It designs, fabricates, erects, tests and paints storage tanks in both carbon and exotic steels and in various shapes and sizes. It has accomplished contracts to build some of the world’s largest solid stainless steel dome roof tanks at 60 m diameter. The company utilises API 650, API 620 or AWWA D 100 design codes as the basis of tank designs and has in-house capability to design out-of-code tanks. The tanks it builds are categorised as, though not limited to, floating roof tanks, dome roof tanks, cone roof tanks and low-temperature cryogenic tanks. It also fabricates double or single-containment insulated tanks with piled or insulated foundations.

Pressure Vessels
The product range in pressure vessels extends from small pots fabricated from exotic materials to vessels in excess of 7 m dia and 300 tonnes in weight. It is qualified to fabricate from carbon steel, stainless steel, clad plate inconels and hastalloy, among other materials.  The vessels comply with ASME Section VIII Division 1; ASME Section VIII Division II and PD 5500 (BS5500). The company operates quality assurance programmes specific to vessels and as such is certified to code stamp vessels to U (ASME), U2 (ASME), NB (the National Board) and R (The National Board).

Process Columns
YSC has mechanically designed and fabricated process columns in sizes up to 300 tonnes in carbon steel, stainless steel and clad plate. The company also has experience in installing column internal trays both prior to delivery and on-site after erection of the column.
It is also able to offer on-site, in-situ repairs to process columns under its National Board ‘R’ stamp certification.

Spheres
Its experience in this area covers site erection, postweld heat treatment, testing, painting and insulation of spheres up to 26 m in diameter and can offer a full EPC package covering design, procurement, prefabrication, foundation civil works (design and construction) and site construction in conjunction with its network of specialists.

Structural Steel
The company states that it has delivered in excess of 30,000 tonnes of the highest quality structural steel and modularised steel weldments. Its facilities allow it to fabricate all aspects of industrial structural steel requirements.

Industrial Services
NSC has extensive experience of on-site installation and maintenance work covering but not limited to: mechanical plant installation, tank repair, tank seal replacement, vessel/column repairing, repair and changeout, specialised plant shutdown work and piping repair and changeout.

Blasting and Painting
The company claims it has been the largest blasting and painting contractor in the Middle East over the past 10 years in terms of square meters of coated surface, having accomplished in excess of 1.2 million sq m of tank coating, 400,000 sq m of pipe coating and 30,000 tonnes of structural steel coating to the most stringent quality standards in the industry.
YSC has a 1,600 sq m state-of-the-art environmentally compliant painting facility in Yanbu with other facilities and site crews across Saudi Arabia. These facilities are complemented by 150 qualified blasters, painters and quality control inspectors together with all the equipment necessary for painting requirements including internal coating of pipes and application of proprietary chemical-resistant coatings. Yanbu Steel Company is an approved Saudi Aramco and Sabic blasting and painting contractor.

Engineering
The company has developed a strong and independent engineering design capability to spread its core business of tanks, vessels and structural steel. It says it has developed a tried and tested in-house capability, enhanced by the addition of a wholly owned engineering design services company in India, YSC India Engineering Company. The company’s engineering capability is western-managed and utilises the latest licensed computerised engineering and design software.
Ongoing projects
The company has much on its hands by way of ongoing projects. It is currently working on the fabrication of 10 x 4,500 cu m/Devaporator units for a SWCC project on a contract from ACWA Power Sasakura.  It is also tasked through an EPC contract to provide a clad evaporator column and a condensate drum for Sabic’s Yanpet facility.
It also has the EPC contract to provide large vessels for Sabic’s Yansab project. The vessels comprise a plant air receiver vessel, an instrument air receiver and an ethylene flare KO drum.
In a similar contract for Sabic/Yansab Fluor Transworld Services, Yanbu Steel Company is fabricating a number of prefabricated tanks.
These include a benzene waste water tank, a benzene stripped feed tank, a benzene sludge tank, an oily water storage tank, an HCS waste oil sump tank, a polymer tank, a benzene oily water slump tank, an HSC flare header oily sump tank, a glycol waste tank, an HCS polyethylene flare oily sump tank, a sulphuric acid day tank and a drinking water tank.
Yanbu Steel Company is working on the fabrication of major tanks for Sabic’s Yansab project with Fluor Arabia as the contractor. These include a FBCR caustic storage tank, two FBCR neutralisation tanks and one  FBCR suspect condensate tank as well as FBDR tanks, each of which will store the following:  sulphuric acid, fire water, cooling water, service water, MTBE, pygas raffinate, butane pressure, BTX residue, pentene pressure, benzene, methanol, benzene oily water,  fuel oil, quench water, pygas and polished condensate.
The company is also fabricating two each of FBDR storage tanks for the following: glycol waste, monoethylene glycol, diethylene glycol and triethylene glycol.

Projects recently completed
YSC recently completed a Sabic project for the supply of NH3 tanks.
Last year it fabricated 12 floating and fixed roof tanks of diameters between 44 m and 18 m. The tanks, required by Saudi Aramco, were meant for locations in North Riyadh, Sulayil and Qassim. Also in 2006, YSC supplied seven floating tanks of diameters ranging from 38 m to 12 m for a site in Qassim. The customer was ABVRG but the project was owned by Saudi Aramco.
In the same year it built several silos for Samref. The location for the silos was Yanbu Port.