DAMMAM: The Saudi Arabian International Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference opened yesterday at the Dhahran International Exhibition Center. The conference is being promoted as a complete event for the oil and gas industry, attracting high level technical experts, key industry professionals, specialists and decision-makers in both upstream, downstream and petrochemical sectors of the petroleum industry.
On the sidelines of the event, Arab News met with two major players in the Saudi oil & gas industry — Abdullah R. Al-Rushaid, chairman and CEO of Al-Rushaid Investment and Trading Company (Al-Rushaid Group), and John Clarke, chairman of the board and CEO of NATCO. Al-Rushaid, established in 1977, is the largest oil and gas services company in the Middle East. NATCO is a leading provider of wellhead process equipment, systems and services used in the production of oil and gas.
Senior management of the two companies came together to announce that their joint venture, NATCO Al-Rushaid Middle East Ltd. (NATCO Al-Rushaid), has been awarded a Company Registration Certificate (CR) by the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Industry. NATCO Al-Rushaid was established in 2007 and is engaged in the construction of a $50 million dedicated vessel manufacturing facility within Al-Rushaid’s industrial complex in Jubail. The construction of the facility is on schedule and is expected to be completed by mid-2009. All equipment for the facility has been ordered and general manager and key positions staff have been recruited. The CR covers the production of pressure vessels including desalters, dehydrators, filters hydrocyclones and more, for the upstream, downstream and petrochemical markets.
“The new manufacturing facility is a great milestone for us in terms of being ready to move our capabilities into the Kingdom and be able to bring technology and manufacturing capabilities inside Saudi Arabia,” Clarke remarked.
Al-Rushaid, who is chairman of the joint venture added, “The Al-Rushaid Group is always looking for opportunities in line with Saudi Aramco’s future programs. Since Saudi Aramco is now expanding their exploration and production capability in non-associated gas, we thought about creating something that is capable of providing outstanding value and has the capability to support this large, large market. NATCO was our top choice to partner with in this new venture. We don’t believe that there is any other company in the world today as capable as NATCO to provide the technologies and services that meet Saudi Aramco’s requirements, as the largest petroleum producer in the world, to use the latest technologies in the field.”
Al-Rushaid made it clear though that the joint venture is about more than simply manufacturing equipment.
“In accordance with the Saudi government’s policies and in line with the instructions of (Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques) King Abdullah, our strategy has always been to find the ways and means for transferring the latest technology into Saudi Arabia,” he explained. “Through NATCO Al-Rushaid, we are bringing manufacturing, technology and engineering. This is what is called a ‘full package.’ This will serve the local industry without the need to go outside the country for any technical resources. I want to emphasize that this technology is being brought here not only to facilitate the oil and gas business, but also to create jobs for Saudis. Our plan is to create training facilities where we can develop our own corps of human resources and grow the services side of the business for the long term. Our goal is to penetrate into the Saudi market and beyond into the region, training and developing local human resources as we grow.”
But will there be continuing growth in the regional oil and gas industry? NATCO’s chairman is quite bullish on the topic.
“There is a great deal of uncertainty with the current economic downturn. However, if you look at the long term and the amount of time it takes for these projects to progress, we are quite confident that major projects will continue particularly in this region where the economics are the best of anyplace in the world. It’s important to remember that the development phase on most projects in the oil and gas industry is five to ten years in terms of initial work and then the productive life is generally quite long beyond that,” said Clarke.
Patrick McCarthy, NATCO Al-Rushaid director and NATCO president, elaborated further. “When the new facility starts up in the second quarter of 2009, we expect that area equipment sales for new build and retrofits will be substantial. We will focus first on debottlenecking opportunities and sales of crude oil desalting and dehydration vessels, as well as equipment solutions for produced water treatment.”
