The Middle East’s top concrete producer Saudi Readymix expects to see greatly scaled down growth this year but is nevertheless going ahead with expansions clearly with long-term goals in mind.
The company hopes to acquire several ready-mix concrete companies this year in GCC markets through its Bahrain-based international arm, Masheed Building Materials Holding Company, said marketing and business development manager Fadi Mujahed.
“We still plan to expand our operations further in 2009 with the establishment of two new aggregate quarries in Riyadh and Makkah and two new on-site ready-mix concrete factories and all the required mobile and auxiliary equipment,” Mujahed added.
“On the product front, we are introducing and promoting the use of special concrete such as self-compacting concrete, high-strength high-rise concrete and green concrete that would be needed in some of the major important projects that will start in Saudi Arabia soon.”
The company has spent SR800 million ($213.6 million) on new equipment to raise the number of its factories from 19 in 2005 to 31 now.  These are located in all major cities and on the sites of some major projects.
The installed stationary capacity at its factories exceeds 13 million cu m per year while the mobile capacity stands between 6.5 and 7 million cu m.
Last year Saudi Readymix produced more than 5 million cu m of concrete making it the largest concrete producer in the Middle East.
Production is accomplished with 70 computerised concrete batching plants, 500 mixer trucks, 170 mobile concrete pumps and 11 stationary concrete pumps as well as auxiliary facilities such as ice plants, water chillers, washing plants and weather stations.
All its batching plants are fully computerised and interlinked with its own trademarked ICE (Integrated Concrete Enterprise) system which facilitates the flow of information among different functions to enable decision-makers to have an enterprise-wide view.
The company’s labs have sophisticated testing equipment. All concrete supervisors are trained concrete technologists with certificates from major technical institutes such as the London Institute that prepares students for the City & Guilds Concrete Technology Certificate. Stringent quality control and testing procedures are followed.
While 2008 saw the company crossing the milestone of 5 million cu m, growth is expected to slow this year.
“Saudi Arabia is one of the very few markets hopefully shielded to a certain extent from the woes that the banking system is facing and demand for infrastructural and residential products is still high compared to other GCC countries. So we do foresee some growth in the Saudi market during 2009 but to be honest much lower growth than the plans we set earlier,” commented Mujahed.
“We are targeting 15-20 per cent growth this year compared with the 30 per cent growth we enjoyed during the past two years.”
The company is currently working on the Jabal Omar project in Jeddah, King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Rabigh, Saudi Kayan in Jubail, PetroRabigh in Rabigh and Aramco’s Khursaniya project, among others.
The company procures its cement from most of the major cement companies in Saudi Arabia. For aggregates, it draws most of its requirements from its own quarries while buying the remainder from local suppliers in the cities where it operates.
While it has accomplished great progress in terms of gaining capacity and is pursuing expansion, the global financial crisis is casting a shadow.
“We are starting to feel and see part of the impact as some projects are slightly delayed, extended or shelved for a while. We expect the challenges of 2008 namely extremely fast-track projects, long lead times, tight supply of talent, among others, will disappear gradually and new challenges will emerge such as project financing and delays in product start-ups.”