With several projects ongoing, one of Saudi Arabia’s leading galvanisers expects to do better than last year in terms of output.

Dammam-based Al-Ajab Galvanizing coated 40,000 tonnes of steel in 2008, a figure it believes it will surpass by 5,000 tonnes this year.

Chief executive officer Waleed Khalid Al-Ajab says the company was able to galvanise 20,000 tonnes in first-half 2009.

It has five major contracts ongoing including Aramco’s Ras Tanura DHT project, a job awarded by Samsung Engineering, and Sabic subsidiary Saudi Kayan’s olefins project (contractor KBR-Singapore).

Al-Ajab is also currently working on the Ma’aden DAP Granulation Project (Nesma & Partners), Pearl GTL (Al Jaber Transport & General Contracting) and NCP petrochemicals complex (JGC and Saudi Daelim).

Al Ajab’s facilities, situated in Dammam’s Second Industrial City and Jubail Support Zone III, have a total galvanising capacity of 60,000 tonnes annually. The Jubail plant commenced operations last year and more than doubled capacity.

The company does not supply ready-made galvanised steel but works on material brought to its gates by customers.

The company offers metal plating and hot dip galvanising services as well as steel blasting when required. The main raw material, zinc, is imported from Australia and Korea.  Waleed said there was no problem of availability of zinc except that there was “price instability” in the international market.

“We accomplish hot dip galvanising, a process that protects steel from corrosion for years, by following ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standards,” said Waleed.

“During the past few years, galvanising has created a great impact and now it has more or less become mandatory that all steel fabricators and contractors go in for that before they undertake final work,” he observed.

“We at Al-Ajab have adopted a high-tech method of galvanising called ‘high velocity system’ to ensure high quality and impeccable performance conforming to the highest international standards. Our zinc bath operation is continuous and the temperature is controlled automatically to be the same in all parts of the bath so that the required thickness is obtained perfectly.

“This is a very special advantage available only with us in the Eastern Province.”

Waleed said the company had been successful over the years because of uncompromising attention to quality and a tradition of delivering on schedule.

Over the past three years it has completed projects awarded by contractors including Technip, Chiyoda, Fluor Daniel, Sumitomo, Technicas, ENPPI, Hanwha Engineering, J&P, Shaw Stone & Webster, Saudi Daelim, CTCI Corpn, Nesma and Sanopec. During that time, it has been involved with high-profile jobs linked to Kuwait Olefins Company, Ras Laffan RGX, Sipchem Acetylene, Yansab, the AAC ethylene amines project, Nuayyim ASL Crude, Yanbu Gas Plant, Yanbu Refinery, Yanbu HDP, Yanbu BBTX and several Saudi Kayan units.

Al-Ajab Galvanizing is part of Al-Ajab Group, which was founded in 1968 as a general trading and contracting company. As well as general contracting, hot dip galvanising and metal plating, the group provides engineering solutions.