With several important orders it is currently implementing, National Aluminium Products Company (Napco) looks set to consolidate further its recovery.

The company, which provides aluminium extrusion in various finishes, is undertaking supplies to a host of Gulf projects including Dubai’s Burj Dubai Podium; Burj Dubai (partially) and the World Trade Centre. Elsewhere in the UAE it is supplying a part of the Reem Island requirements in Abu Dhabi.
In Qatar, the company is also in the process of supplying its products to the Qatar Navigation Tower and Oceana Towers, whereas in Bahrain it is busy with the Durrat Al Bahrain project.
In its home market, it has a big share of the prestigious projects including The Wave, Muscat; Palm Gardens, Sohar, and Sohar Port and other related infrastructure.
“Currently in the GCC, Napco is mainly catering to the architectural needs of all projects – to be more specific, doors and windows and curtain-walling profiles,” said business development officer  Vinod Shetty.
The company’s pro-duct segments range from structural and archite-ctural applications to  industrial applications such as machine parts, truck and bus bodies, ladders and scaffolding, automotive and the marine sector.
“This has been achieved through constant focus on consistent quality and responsiveness to customer needs,” says Shetty.  “The process from the design and development stage to actual fabrication is partly supported by our technical team which provides all technical inputs to ensure that the final product is a blend of quality, reliability and aesthetics.”
Napco is an extruder certified to the ISO 9001 quality system.
“Quality management is incorporated into all procedures from the procurement of billets, dies, process chemicals and powders to the actual production and supply of aluminium extruded profiles,” says Shetty.
 “The extrusion standards comply with DIN/BS, and the anodising and powder-coating processes comply with Qualicoat and Qualanod standards respectively. The dies are procured from the best producers in the world and raw material (billets) is supplied by Dubal, a Dubai-based company, to ensure a well planned supply of raw material and take full logistical advantage of the short distance between Napco and Dubal.”
The official also stated that the company was proud of its “integrated order proce-ssing and production scheduling systems” to provide flexibility to customers and maintain production levels.
In the first six months of this year, the net profit was 574,000 against RO372,000 in the corresponding period of 2006.
In 2006 the company had made a net profit of RO1 million against a net loss of RO202,500. Total sales expanded to RO20.9 million against RO14.9 million in the pre-vious year. The company said total export sales for 2006 were RO18.09 million.
Giving a breakdown of sales, the company said 50 per cent was attributed to the UAE, 15 per cent to Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait and 8 per cent to Africa with the home market contributing 13 per cent.
Markets for Napco’s products are expected to remain buoyant worldwide, more particularly in the GCC,” comments Shetty.  “Separately the trend to outsource production using relatively established technologies such as aluminum extrusions from the advanced countries to the developing world represents a sizable growth opportunity for companies like Napco. Seizing this opportunity would result in climbing up the virtuous cycles of even higher quality and more particularly lower unit costs.”
Napco will be able to source some of its raw material requirements from an Omani smelter itself once Sohar Aluminium’s project is completed.