Big Project ME

081

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

DECEMBER 2012 www.bigprojectme.com

Cover project

Basra Culture Centre

Key project

City of Palms

Onsite

Sports City Stadium Complex

THE START OF SOMETHING NEW

Can Basra reclaim its title as the Venice of the Middle East?

ALSO INSIDE: Tamweel fire Tender updates the building envelope Risk to Contractors BIG 5 Review

M MIDDLE EAST

contents

PAGE 32 BPME is in Basra to see how it is evolving.

DECEMBER 2012

09

REGIONAL NEWS

TENDERS NEWS Rounding up the region’s top tender news from the past month

20

NEWS ANALYSIS

Bigger is better Examining what the largest Big 5 exhibition ever means for the construction industry

22

IN PROFILE

26

ON SITE

WILLIAM WHISTLER Green Building Solutions founder William Whistler explains why the building envelope needs to be looked at

Bringing Basra back How the Al Fayha Group is taking on the odds in Southern Iraq

32

cover story Operation Basra: regenerating the jewel How a multi-billion dollar project is transforming the troubled Iraqi province

40

SPECIAL REPORT: CONTRACTS Wrong end of the telescope David Brodie-Stedman from Hill International on why global contractors could leave the Middle East over contract wrangles

45 Construction IT

Getting your site mobile Hervé Hamelin of Aconex explains how project teams can communicate more effectively with mobile solutions

46

Special Features

In the mix

Ready mix contractors struggle with the shift from towers to infrastructure

Supplier news

52

Tenders

58

constructive criticism

Lessons from the past Gavin Davids asks if Saudi Arabia will regret its decision to demolish part of its history

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

50

3

EDITOR’S COMMENT

M MIDDLE EAST

bigprojectME.com

No more excuses

EDITORIAL GROUP EDITOR stephen white stephen@cpidubai.com +971 55 795 8740

It is not yet clear how the fire started but eye-witness reports suggested that it spread from the top of the tower and down one side of the building. Residents also said they had seen debris falling off the side of the tower as its facade appeared to melt under extreme heat (it must also be telling that Tamweel told owners that it will replace the burnt out facade with “fire proof material).

COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR MICHAEL STANSFIELD michael@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9128

While an adequate fire code exists in the UAE, Tamweel’s scarred facade exposes major loopholes in the convoluted process of approval that requires paperwork being handed around sub-contractors, contractors, consultants and the municipality.

The municipality in Dubai is working to close as many of these as possible – as BPME went to press new regulations were already in place – but as an industry it should also be incumbent on us to take on the responsibility of protecting lives and ensure that risk is reduced as much as possible.

We operate in a field where there are organisations that are prepared to self-regulate and there are others that clearly cut corners for the sake of being competitive and make money out of contracts. It is time that consultants, contractors and developers that are interested in change expose these practices to the authorities and ensure that people can trust we will do our utmost to protect the lives of the innocent.

No more excuses.

Stephen White Group Editor

MIDDLE EAST

Managing Director Richard Judd

deputy EDITOR GAVIN DAVIDS gavin@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9118

This has been the case in a number of other fires in the UAE and, if it is true for Tamweel Tower, questions need to be asked before residents are caught in another serious fire.

DECEMBER 2012

GROUP COO Nadeem Hood

While the fact that 600 residents managed to escape a 34-storey blaze at the Tamweel Tower should be a cause for celebration, we, as an industry, need to be asking ourselves some serious questions about how we conduct our business.

As the fire started at the top of the building, some experts have argued that the air conditioning is the likeliest cause of the fire with a potentially combustible plastic used in the core of the aluminium cladding to blame for it spreading downwards so quickly. You really do not need a degree in materials science to realise that plastic is going to struggle to stick to aluminium at extreme temperatures.

6

Publisher Dominic De Sousa

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR MELANIE MINGAS melanie@cpidubai.com MARKETING & ADVERTISING PUBLISHING Director RAZ ISLAM raz@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9129

SALES DIRECTOR CARLO MENEZES carlo@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9151 Sales Manager Dhanushka Arjuna dhanushka@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9163 MARKETING MANAGER CAROLE MCCARTHY carolem@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9157 DESIGN SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER REBECCA TEECE rebecca@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9168 JUNIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER PERCIVAL manalaysay CIRCULATION & PRODUCTION Circulation and Distribution Manager ROCHELLE Almeida rochelle@cpidubai.com +971 4 368 1670 Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147 Production Manager James P Tharian james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146 EVENTS & CONFERENCES Events Director Nayab Raffique nayab@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9157 Business Development Manager Preijesh Pillai prijesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9162 DIGITAL www.bigprojectme.com Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Maagma Web Developers JOEL AZCUNA online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press LLC © Copyright 2012 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

NOW ONLINE You can now get the online edition every month at: www.bigprojectme.com

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REGIONAL NEWS

Calls for fire safety increase after blaze at Tamweel Tower

Following the outbreak of yet another high-rise fire, calls for stringent regulation and checks increase as the government and industry work towards a unified fire safety code Fire numbers from the uae 4,000 Fires reported in 2011 95 Number of people killed 1,817 Number of people injured 3,274 Building fires in 2011 4,980 Building fires in 2010 33 Building fire deaths in 2011 174 Building fire deaths in 2010

Following yet another fire breaking out in a high-rise tower, this time in the Jumeirah Lakes Towers in Dubai, calls for stronger government commitment to fire safety have increased.

Earlier this month, a massive fire engulfed Tamweel Tower during the early hours of the morning, causing residents to flee in panic as the fire department battled the blaze.

According to eyewitness reports, the fire started on the roof and spread rapidly down the side of the building.

Residents of the building were seen gathering in the street and inside their cars, while the flames spread. Fire alarms were said to have woken up residents, not just in the building, but also in surrounding towers.

“I stay four buildings away from Tamweel tower, but the screeching alarm work me up.

When I looked out, I saw the fire engines and police patrol cars and then saw the rooftop

on fire. It was a terrifying sight,” a JLT resident said.

Other eyewitnesses said that slabs of concrete fell off from the rooftop, leading to the spread of the fire to different floors. Some pieces landed on resident’s balconies, setting fire to those apartments.

Although Civil Defence sources confirmed that there were no casualties, the incident highlighted how vulnerable high-rise towers are to fire hazards. Photographs taken during the fire showed that the cladding along the sides of the building went up in flames, and in fact, helped enabled the spread of the fire to the lower floors of the residential tower Stephen Lipscombe, senior manager – Technical & QA/QC at Emirates Glass, and a fire safety expert, said the industry, community and government must work together to increase awareness about fire safety and ensure that proper standards are met and followed.

“5000m2 of aluminium cladding with polyurethane contains as much benzene as a refill truck going to a petrol station,” he told Big Project ME on the sidelines of a fire safety conference. “We have pictures of buildings out here, where the glass has stayed intact, but the aluminium cladding, which self combusts at 500°C, has burnt up, across and come back down again. The glass has stayed intact, but the building is ablaze from the outside.”

Lipscombe pointed out that there needed to be increased cooperation so as to ensure that best practices are met and workers installing equipment are properly educated on fire safety and systems.

“Awareness generally isn’t a problem; it’s the inspection, the enforcement (of regulations). Anyone can write a law, a standard, it’s about having the will or the people to enforce it and make it work.”

“We’re pushing the government to adopt standards; we’re pushing this all the time. If you look at it from the point of view that this is a developing infrastructure and a developing system, with all the attached responsibility that brings to the political system, then we’ve learnt so many lessons from our communities, (at home)” Lipscombe said.

“We’ve learnt from our mistakes, so why should the learning curve here take just as long? We bring this experience and it must be presented in a way that’s practical, cost effective and involves all of the community.”

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

how small things lead to big problems: william whistler on the buidling envelope on page 22

9

REGIONAL NEWS

bigprojectME.com

Dubai developers need to have a rethink - CBRE head says CBRE managing director says that smaller developers not thinking of efficiency while developing projects

Municipality to implement revised wind codes for buildings New rules will take into account the increased number of high-rise construction projects in Dubai Dubai Municipality will implement a revised Wind Code applying to the construction of any new building in the emirate in 2013.

The new rules will take into account the increased number of high-rise construction projects in the emirate, a report in a local newspaper said.

With so many tall buildings, Moawya Safarina, engineer at the Permit Section of Dubai Municipality’s Building Department, said that different standards are required when it comes to wind and seismic design.

According to Safarina, wind not only affects structures at different intensities, but new structures also alter wind flows.

As a result, architects designing buildings where more than 15% of the terrain is covered by structures taller than 15m will have to take into account different requirements than when designing a building for an open area without obstacles, he explained.

The code is still currently under review, Safarina said, but added that it elaborates on specific requirements for structures that are ‘spatially irregular’, flexible or very tall. It also covers structures that are susceptible to ‘vortex shedding’, ‘galloping’ or ‘wake buffeting’.

Due to these characteristics causing human discomfort, the code states that such structures will be required to undergo wind tunnel testing to gain more accurate estimations.

Building developers operating in Dubai need to rethink the way they approach the development of their buildings, a local real estate expert has said.

In an interview with Big Project ME, Nick Maclean, the managing director of CB Richard Ellis Middle East, said that the biggest issue facing real estate development in Dubai was that developers were still thinking ‘from the outside in’.

“I think the number one issue we face in providing a critique of a scheme is that the building has been designed from the outside in,” he explained.

“Therefore, the building may be stunning from the outside, but the efficiency of the space may actually be very poor.”

This mindset has repercussions when it comes obtaining funding for projects, Maclean added.

While developers building large-scale products were already aware of this, smaller developers designing one off buildings were at risk of being unable to obtain funding for their projects as banks remain unconvinced of their viability, he said.

“The number one advice we’re providing to some developer clients is that (the building) has to be efficient and therefore has to be designed from the structure of the floor plate first and therefore from the inside out.”

He added that another issue land owners and developers were facing was that the locations of their properties were not suitable for development at the moment.

As a result, banks were reluctant to provide funding for these projects.

“Another issue is that some land developers and

owners have is that the land they’re holding is in locations that are currently not active in the market.

The issue they face is that while the CBD of Dubai expands, there will of course be an increase in demand. But they’re not in demand at the moment.”

“In some instances, we tell developers that the time is not right for them to build speculatively because we see very limited demand,” he explained.

“The banks are going through the same process.

Your scheme might be good, but if there’s no demand in your location, you won’t be provided with funds,” he said in warning.

Trimble expands into the gcc

2013 new wind rules

will be introduced by Dubai municipality

Trimble, the US based construction technology provider, has announced that it has established a SITECH Technology Dealer network for Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. SITECH Gulf joins a fully dedicated global distribution network that offers a portfolio of construction technology systems to heavy civil construction contractors.

In addition to offering consultative advice on customised technology solutions, training, data

services, installation, service and technical support, the network will represent Trimble and Caterpillar machine control systems for the contractor’s entire fleet of heavy equipment, regardless of the machine’s manufacturer brand.

SITECH Gulf will also offer Trimble’s portfolio of ‘Connected Site’ products to its customers. These include site positioning systems, construction asset management services, software and powerful wireless and Internet based site communications infrastructure.

10

MIDDLE EAST

Bringing Basra Back: How the Al Fahya Group is fighting the odds and winning in the south of iraq ON PAGE 26

DECEMBER 2012

REGIONAL NEWS

Yanbu Waterfront ready by 2013 Royal Commission for Yanbu says project will attract tourism to the region The Yanbu Waterfront Project is expected to complete construction by the year 2013, the chief executive of the Royal Commission for Yanbu has said.

Dr Alaa bin Abdullah Nassif said that infrastructure of the third phase of the project was being designed to accommodate hotels, tourism villages, water gardens and public

Qatar investing $140bn in infrastructure

drainage systems.

Telecom and power supplies will also be installed.

The Royal Commission has invested more than $399mn into the setting up of infrastructure for the Waterfront Project, which will overlook the Red Sea. Dr Nassif added that the Commission would inject more investment into the project, when needed.

Limitless announces more Moscow based housing projects

Country’s Finance Minister says investment to be spread over the next five years Qatar is expected to invest more than $140bn into its infrastructure projects over the next five years, the country’s Finance Minister has said.

According to local newspaer reports, Yousef Hussein Kamal said that projects such as the new airport, the first phase of a railway station plan and education and social development would receive the bulk of the investment.

Qatar’s construction industry has been on a strong upward curve, buoyed by strong GDP growth and preparations for the hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. A recent Alpen Capital report found that the country’s residential market is set for strong growth on the back of sustained population and increased economic activity. According to IMF estimates, the population of Qatar is set to grow at a CAGR of 4.7% between 2011 and 2016 due to an influx of expatriates.

The country has a number of ongoing construction projects, valued at $250bn, with infrastructure attracting some 34% of total investments.

In addition, approximately $100bn is planned to be spent on development projects in anticipation of the World Cup.

facilities, he said in a report by Zawya.

Spread over an area of 11km2, the Yanbu Waterfront Project is designed to attract tourism to the region, as well as provide leisure facilities for visitors to Yanbu Industrial City.

Development will include land preparation and levelling, building roads and parking, as well as potable water supply, irrigation and

Dubai based developer and JV partner award another $10m contract for Zagorodny Kvartal project

$140 BILLION

Amount Qatar will invest in infrastructure

Limitless and RDI, the developers behind a $33m Russian project, have announced the awarding of a contract worth $10.07m for more apartment buildings at Zagorodny Kvartal, a mixed use community project north-west of Moscow.

The joint venture partners have appointed the Moscow based firm FODD as general contractor to construct another two towers which will contain 78 residential units.

The project is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2013.

FODD had been awarded the contract for two other apartment blocks at Zagorodny Kvartal earlier this year, the joint venture said.

Phase one of Zagorodny Kvartal is due to be completed in early 2015.

It will comprise of 700 apartments and 46

townhouses. Five apartment towers and the first phase of townhouses are currently under construction, with more contracts due.

The developers said that more than 60 units have been sold so far to investors in Russia, with plans afoot for a sales launch in Dubai.

Located about 24km northwest of Moscow, Zagorodny Kvartal, meaning Country Quarter, is being constructed alongside the Moscow Canal.

The project will span 111 hectares and accommodate around 14,000 people when it is fully completed.

It will be at the heart of one of Moscow’s fastest growing districts, the developer said.

Set 4km away from Sheremetyevo International Airport, the project is 8km away from the Moscow Ring Road and 10km from the Kimki Business Park.

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

Operation Basra: regenerating the jewel - how Basra’s ambitious regeneration plan is taking shape - page 32

11

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REGIONAL NEWS

bigprojectME.com

Atkins appoints Qatar managing director Rod Stewart to spearhead the company’s ‘continued strategic growth’ in Gulf country

Brad Pitt-linked architecture firm sues Zabeel Investments Graft takes Dubai Crown Prince owned investment company to court over unpaid fees

14

MIDDLE EAST

Graft Gesellschaft von Architekten, the German architecture firm that collaborated with Hollywood star Brad Pitt to design a luxury hotel and resort in Dubai, has said it will sue Zabeel Investments for fees owed to it from the project.

The firm claims that the investment firm, which is owned by Dubai’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed al Maktoum, owes it unpaid fees of $1.79mn, a number of local news reports have said.

“Services were provided and approved and only partially paid for,” said Ludmila Yamalova, a Dubai based attorney representing Graft in the court proceedings. She added that Zabeel had agreed to pay $9.2mn for the design, but had only given Graft $7.48mn of the money owned.

Mazen Boustany, the lawyer representing Zabeel Investments, had not responded to requests for comments on the matter.

Zabeel has been undergoing a process of debt restructuring following the collapse of Dubai’s property market.

Earlier this year, the firm reached a $956mn debt deal with lenders. It owes in the region of $1.6bn to local banks.

Yamalova said that Zabeel had engaged Graft in 2007, paying a retainer fee and

DECEMBER 2012

making further instalments for design work on a hotel complex that was to be located in Dubailand.

In 2008, the investment firm said that Brad Pitt would be amongst Graft’s team of design consultants on the project.

“Selecting this development as my first major construction project has been a simple decision,” Pitt said in a statement released at the time.

“It will underpin not only my values for environmentally friendly architecture, but also embrace my career in entertainment.”

However, Yamalova declined to confirm if Pitt would have a role in Graft’s lawsuit against Zabeel, although she pointed out that the actor and the architecture firm had collaborated on a number of projects across the globe, including building his home in the city of Los Angeles.

“Graft and Brad go way back,” she said, “They have been close friends and collaborators on projects for many years. They’re very good friends and they are also close partners.”

She added that the hotel project was called ‘Hotel America’ and that it had gone through many stages of design before being dropped.

Hearings have yet to begin in the court case, which was filed on October 24 but was only recently made public.

$1.79 Million

amount zabeel owes to graft

Atkins have appointed a new managing director to head its rapidly growing operations in Qatar.

Rod Stewart, a veteran of the Middle East, joins the company from Wates Group, where he was group production director responsible for introducing change and leading the development of operational excellence in construction operations.

Prior to that, he held senior positions at both Hyder and Halcrow, including a seven year spell leading Hyder’s Middle Eastern business. Stewart’s international experience also includes heading up Halcrow’s Central and Eastern European operations.

“I’m very excited and motivated by the opportunity presented by Atkins in Qatar,” said Stewart. “I look forward to bringing my skills to bear to ensure we really excel in supporting our clients to realise Qatar’s National 2030 Vision.”

He will be responsible for spearheading the company’s continued strategic growth throughout key sectors, the company said.

“Qatar is one of our most important strategic growth markets. We were determined to bring in a managing director who is capable of building on our tremendous success during the past 12 months, while ensuring we remain focused on exceptional service to clients,” explained Richard Barrett, CEO for Atkins ME.

Damac establishes Iraqi joint venture Agreement part of developer’s plan to enter into Iraqi construction market Damac Properties has agreed a tie-up with Al Fao General Engineering Company, a subsidiary of the Iraqi Ministry of Housing and Construction, to develop projects in the country, it has been announced.

The move comes less than five weeks after Damac agreed a deal with the

Ministry directly, which will see it develop a number of projects in Baghdad and the surrounding region.

“This agreement formalises our relationship with the Iraqi government and is the first step in developing projects in Iraq,” said Ziad El Chaar, managing director of Damac.

The deal will

see Damac and Al Fao create a joint venture that will work on the development of the ministry’s sites across the country.

“The joint venture with Al Fao General Engineering brings together two industry experts, (thereby) enabling the swift development of the country,” he added.

REGIONAL NEWS

bigprojectME.com

Saudisation measures criticised Contractors call on Ministry of Labour to address concerns

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MIDDLE EAST

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Labour will address concerns raised by private businesses over fees being charged to companies with expatriate workers exceeding Saudi employees, the Minister of Labour has said.

Adel Fakeih said that his ministry would look to address the problems faced by businesses as a result of the ministry imposing an annual fee of SAR2,400 for every expatriate worker hired in excess of Saudi employees in the private sector.

Fakeih added that the ministry would look at all ‘legitimate and reasonable concerns fairly’, said Saudi Arabian news reports.

The minister’s comments come

after Abdullah Al Mubti, president of the Council of Saudi Chambers, criticised the ministry’s decision.

“The ministry’s decision has caught us off-guard,” he said. “About 90% of workers in the contracting sector are foreign workers,” Al Mubti added, urging the ministry to encourage Saudi Arabians to work with contracting companies instead.

Raed Al Oqabli, deputy chairman of the Contractors Committee at Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, warned that the ministry’s decision could have a negative impact on the national economy.

“About 90% of the one million workers in the contracting sector are foreigners.

DECEMBER 2012

This is because most Saudis are not willing to undertake jobs offered by contracting companies as they have to work under difficult conditions,” he pointed out to news reporters.

“This decision is going to affect all of the contracting companies in the Kingdom as there are no companies that have an equal number of Saudi workers to their foreign workers.”

Al Oqabli added that the cost of employment would have an impact on the cost of the project, as contractors calculated the cost on the basis of expenditures. He estimated that the increase in project costs would be at 25%, following the new ruling.

Afghanistan to build financial centre Project will be modelled on the Dubai International Financial Centre Afghanistan’s bankers plan to set up a financial centre to house the country’s 17 banks and its first ever stock market, the developer behind the project has announced.

Modelled on the Dubai International Financial Centre, the free zone financial district is intended to become the centre of Afghanistan’s financial industry, and will also contain retail shops, food and beverage outlets, offices and brokerage companies, amongst others.

“We are hoping to create a free zone financial district, with the banks and the stock market all in the same facility,” explained Ahmad Bassam, a partner at the Afghanistan Stock Exchange and the man behind the project.

“It’s a very ambitious plan, to create the equivalent of the DIFC. It will be a symbolic building zone and will stand for the country,” he said.

The design of the Afghanistan Stock Exchange building will be chosen from a competition that will see the country’s top architecture students submit designs.

A panel will select the top three designs and then let the public vote on what the building should look like.

Bassam added that his firm, Afghanistan Financial Services, had been awarded the stock market license for the centre.

The company’s responsibility spans from everything such as establishing the operational side of the market, bringing companies and potential investors on board.

In addition, it will encourage partners such as NADAQ OMX to come on board and set up a trading platform for the fledgling exchange.

Government BIM support “finally coming” Executive VP of Tekla predicts surge in tech adoption in regional market Government support for BIM across the Middle East is “finally coming” said Tekla executive vice president, Risto Raty.

The Finnish director said major projects in Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are all benefiting from the implementation of construction software technology.

“The support is finally coming but now we need a champion within government.

It could be an individual or a small group but it’s a visionary multi-skilled role that must incorporate understanding of projects, business models and technology.”

Raty added that it is now time for government to take the lead, organising endorsed CPD and education programmes and the writing of BIM standards.

“It’s not a question of BIM not being adopted, it’s just a case of how quickly, how companies will train staff and how governments will help to support that financially. How companies overcome training their employees will be the next hurdle,” he added.

REGIONAL NEWS

DSI announces $571mn in revenue for first nine months of 2012 CFO says that Q3 results reflect overall slowdown in regional construction sector profitability,” said Osama Hamdan, chief financial officer of DSI. “The company also extended its contract provisioning in the third quarter,” he added.

The cumulative revenues for the first nine months of 2012 indicate a continued momentum, Hamdan said. He added that the backlog had been positively enhanced by recent project awards.

The Dubai company has been able to record strong project awards across all sectors year to date, which indicates sustainable growth and sound business fundamentals.

“The solid performance of our core MEP business has been strong, with over 10% net margins and will continue to contribute to the growth of DSI. The Oil & Gas and Civil businesses are expected to enhance revenue growth during the last quarter.

Expansion into Rail is on track and the company is prequalifying for major bids in that sector, across the region,” Hamdan explained.

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

Drake and Scull International, the regional provider of civil contracting, MEP, water and power and rail engineering and construction services, has announced total revenues of $571.7mn for the first nine months of 2012.

Net profit was recorded at $22.5mn for the same period, the company said. The order backlog closed at $2.04bn as for September 2012, with total project awards year to date reached $735mn.

However, in the context of the seasonal trend and the associated slowdown in productivity across the contractor’s major market, revenues earned in Q3 were $169.6mn, with profits amounting to $2.17mn.

“The Q3 results reflect an overall slowdown in the construction sector in the region. Productivity rates dropped across all our projects in the GCC and Africa. The procurement cycle in our operations dipped as a result of the summer holiday season, thereby impacting the overall

17

TENDER NEWS

bigprojectME.com

TOP TENDERS

Five of the most interesting tenders from around the region Project name: Barka IWP Project

Budget $55,000,000 Client Oman Power & Water Procurement Company

Region Oman Description Build-Own-Operate (BOO) contract for the construction of an Independent Water Project (IWP) in Barka for the expansion of existing water desalination capacity by10 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD), equivalent to 45,460 cubic metres per day.

Status Current Project Project name: Northern Oil Distribution Network Project

PROJECT NAME: Alumina Refinery Project

Budget $600,000,000

Budget $1,500,000,000

Client Kuwait Oil Company

Client Mubadala Development Company

Region Kuwait

Region Abu Dhabi – UAE

Description Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to develop a distribution network for electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) at the northern oil fields.

Description Engineering, Procurement and

Construction (EPC) contract to build an alumina refinery with capacity of at least 1.5 million tonnes a year (t/y).

Status Current Project

Status New Tender

Project name: Jeddah Frozen Food Plant Construction Project

Budget $13,500,000 Client Al-Kabeer Foods Region Saudi Arabia Description Construction of a 2,000 tonne per year (t/y) capacity frozen plant in Jeddah

18

MIDDLE EAST

Status New Tender

DECEMBER 2012

Project name: Sohar Aluminium Rolling Mill Project

Budget 400,000,000 Client Takamul Investment Company Region Oman Description Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract to build an aluminium rolling mill in Sohar with initial production capacity of 140,000 tonnes per annum Status Current Project

Algeria Altruck Company Tel. +213 21 81 38 71/72/73 +213 21 81 39 73 www.volvotrucks.com/dz Bahrain International Agencies Co Ltd Tel. +973 17 728 691 www.intercol.com Egypt Ghabbour Tel. +20 2042107794/5/8 www.volvotrucksegypt.com Iran Saipa Diesel Company Tel. +98 21 44196512 www.volvotrucksiran.com Jordan Jamal Asbah & Partner Co Tel. +962 6 5929666 jordanvolvotrucks.com Kuwait Al Qurain Automotive Trading Co KSC Tel. +965 2492 3145 www.volvotruckskuwait.com Lebanon Gabriel Abou Adal Tel. +961 1 614615 www.volvotrucks.com Libya United Group Tel. +218 21 477 61 08 www.volvotrucks.com Oman International Heavy Equipment L.L.C. Tel. +968 24 52 76 20 www.ihe-oman.com Qatar Doha Marketing Services Company – Domasco Tel. +974 4 451 6690 www.volvotrucksqatar.com Saudi Arabia Zahid Tractor & Heavy Machinery Co. Ltd Tel. +96626209173 www.volvotruckssaudiarabia.com Syria Nahas for Trade and Machinery Tel. +963 11 212 97 36 www.volvotruckssyria.com Tunisia SAYARA Tel. +216 71 454299 www.volvotrucks.com UAE Al-Futtaim – FAMCO Tel. +9714 213 5100 www.volvotrucks.ae Yemen Elaghil Trading Co Ltd Tel. +967 1 20 75 95 www.elaghil.com

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NEWS ANALYSIS

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Bigger is better 5-8 November saw Dubai host the biggest edition yet of Big 5.

Big Project ME was there ask whether exhibitors think the show deserves its reputation as the number one event in the region

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he Big 5 in Dubai is the region’s largest construction related event, with thousands of exhibitors and visitors flocking to the show to meet with suppliers, manufacturers and producers from all across the world.

Over the last few years, the exhibition has seen the effects of the financial crisis hit attendance to the show, with exhibitor numbers dropping and visitors looking for quality over quantity.

However, in perhaps the clearest sign that the construction industry is back in

DECEMBER 2012

business, the 2012 edition of the show has proved to be the biggest in a very long time.

“This has been the biggest event in the show’s history and there has been a constant buzz from the show floor. What has come across from all events is that real business is being done throughout the four days and it is an excellent opportunity for regional and international companies to come together and understand where they can work together in the future,” says Andy White, event director for The Big 5.

Around 2,371 exhibitors from more

NEWS ANALYSIS

had secured several million dollars worth of deals.

However, as positive as this news is, a number of experienced heads called for calm analysis of the market situation.

Stefano Innacone, managing director of IBS-MAPEI, is one of those who warn that the increased development in the construction industry has wider implications for manufacturers and suppliers.

“It’s about quality now. People don’t want to make the mistakes of saving a few hundred thousand dollars and then have to spend millions redoing a project because the quality has let them down,” he explains during an interview with Big Project ME. He adds that if the 2010 and 2011 versions of Big 5 were about testing the waters and seeing if the market was ready for a comeback, this year’s event was about making sure the market got the level of quality it demanded from its suppliers: “We expect a slight contraction in the number and value of projects.”

Stefano innacone

“Sustainability is no long just a boardroom buzzword but a necessity in the current business landscape”

He adds: “It’s also true that the projects that are to come, they have different specifications (to those previously). They are more quality oriented than they were a few years ago.

“The volume isn’t as high as it used to be, in terms of the value of the project, but there’s more quality awareness in the way they’re built and there’s more awareness of sustainability and there’s more use of green materials,” he says.

This awareness of sustainability has underpinned a number of workshops and seminars at events this year, with Andy White explaining that he wanted to put education at the forefront of the show.

“It’s a topic that is an inherent part of all sectors of the building and construction industry, and one that each event will address specifically within its own context,” he says.

“Sustainability is no longer just a boardroom buzzword but a necessity in the current business landscape. Thanks to support from the government and various associations in the UAE we have seen how positive the economic impact of sustainability can be,” he adds. n

Big 5 2012’s, Big Numbers 2,371 Number of exhibitors taking part in this year’s event 60 Number of countries taking part in the event 136 Number of free seminars over the four days 23 Number of Live Product Demonstrations held during the show 2 Number of certified LEED workshops 1 Green Building Conference

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

than 60 countries have taken part in this year’s event, organisers said. Having been around for 30 years, the show has become a crucial barometer for the construction industry in the region, and all the signs point towards a successful 2013.

Figures released by organisers show that millions of dollars in deals were confirmed during the four day event, across a number of different sectors and exhibitors from The Big 5, Middle East Concrete, PMV Live and FM Expo.

Echo Barrier, a Middle East Concrete exhibitor, says that it had signed no less than 45 deals for its noise control barriers during the week, despite it being the first time it had taken part in the event.

“We came here to test the market, and we’ve been very surprised by the uptake and the understanding of the product, for us it’s been an amazing show,” enthuses Andrew Murphy, managing director of the UK based firm.

Stuart Burns, director of Dura Composites, who showcased their products at The Big 5, says that the show had seen “huge amount of interest from all over the GCC, as well as further afield, including container orders from Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Azerbaijan.”

A number of the national pavilions, including Qatar, the UK and the US, were very positive about the business being conducted at the various events, with a number of firms confirming that they

21

IN PROFILE William Whistler

bigprojectME.com

The whistle blower

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With more than 30 years of experience in the construction industry, William Whistler knows a problem when he sees one, he tells Big Project’s Gavin Davids that he’s ready to lift the lid on an issue that’s often been hidden away

DECEMBER 2012

IN PROFILE William Whistler

T

architect decided to switch avatars and become a mold assessor.

Taking the initiative, he decided to get his own equipment, which included an infrared camera and an air-tightness testing machine, to do the job himself.

“I would have had to sign off on this building, which was my responsibility after a year of work on it and I wanted an infrared camera inspection. I wanted an air-tightness test, but I could not get anybody to do it in the GCC. The closest was somebody in England who wanted tens of thousands of pounds to bring his equipment over. So I decided I was going to get my own camera and equipment and do it myself.”

With this attitude in mind, Whistler took it upon himself to learn how to use the equipment, taking courses both in Europe and America and turning himself into a veritable expert in the field.

“I began to do this kind of thing, because of a couple of things. In 2010, the Estidama code came out and I was in the first graduating group of Estidama PQPs. So when the Estidama code came about and began to talk about the building envelope – and 2010 was when the first edition of the Dubai Green Building Regulations was released – I thought that was something that would start to develop.”

As a result, he began Green Building Solutions two years ago, with the aim of

“It’s so simple, so why does it happen? because they weren’t looking at (the big picture), they’re not looking at the building envelope as a system to keep out air and moisture.”

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he first thing that strikes you about William Whistler is that he doesn’t hold back when it comes to expressing his opinions and that those opinions are invariably forthright and cut right to the heart of the matter.

Having worked as an architect for the last 33 years, he has had ample opportunity to air those opinions as he made his way across the world.

Whistler has worked on projects in the US, Japan, India, the UK and Germany, both as an architect based in New York City and as director of design on an international level for Fidelity Investments, one of the largest mutual fund and financial services groups in the world. In 2008, he moved to Dubai to work with the Engineers Office, where he was tasked with bringing in management techniques and reining in control procedures, as he explains.

“I did quality assurance and control, design guidelines, supervision protocols – all kinds of things like that. My orientation has always been as a designer, and I’ve always been striving for quality or the right thing in what I’m doing. And as I’ve gotten more mature (over the last 10 years or so!) I’ve focused on quality management,” He continues: “When I came here to work for the engineer’s office, and got into those things here, it was during the course of that, I got given a project. It was a Level II containment laboratory, which means that it has some level of air pressure zones so you can contain toxins and gases. But it had never worked right from day one, they could never get a clean atmosphere and they could never get the air conditioning balanced. There were dirt particles in the air and so on.

“When it was turned over to the department I was attached to, this facility, the entire area above the ceiling, all the piping and the ductwork, everything was covered in mould. It was damp and a breeding ground for mold colonies,” he recollects.

“The point of this story is that this happened because of just two spots in the building facade, above the false ceiling, where somebody had left out AED50 worth of rockwool insulation. So the desert air came into the building, met the air conditioned air and released its moisture.

That’s the spot where mould can grow.”

With this story, it’s illustrative to note Whistler’s reaction to the problem. While most people would have hired a service company to come by, remove the mould and clean up the place, Whistler decided to eradicate the problem once and for all.

Upon investigating the situation, he realised that there wasn’t anyone in the GCC up to the standards he demanded of himself and his project. Undaunted, the

23

IN PROFILE William Whistler

educating and changing the mindset of the building industry when it came looking at the building envelope system.

“I’ve really set my standards high. I want to be known as a company that does high quality work. In a way, it’s not just about the testing. Quite often, buildings here are built in a rushed atmosphere, but air tightness isn’t about rushing around in the last two weeks with a caulking gun. It is really about the mindset and looking at the building envelope as a system, just like airconditioning, irrigation and so on. All the parts of the system have to work together,” Whistler explains.

Fortunately, he says, the response he’s got has been nothing short of fantastic.

With the region primed to adopt green building technologies, the market had been extremely receptive to what he’s had to say.

“We’ve been very fortunate and I’ve been getting several calls a week, several RFPs. I’m doing several thousand Emirati villas, national housing sites. Currently, I’m also doing ten buildings at Masdar, including the Siemens headquarters,” he adds.

“The Siemens headquarters, is a building that’s going for LEED Platinum, the five star Estidama. Fortunately, the project head realised at an early point that it was going to be important to have someone like me on board, and I got involved in the facade design during the detail design. I’m signing off on all the shop drawings, the drawings that

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have to do with the facade, all the windows, the glazing, all the details for the panelling go through me first and I sign off on them before anyone else on the team.”

This attention to detail is crucial for him to ensure that a building’s envelope system remains absolutely perfect. This hasn’t

“I’ve really set my standards high. I want to be known as a company that does high quality work. In a way, it’s not just about the testing.”

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MIDDLE EAST

always been the case as, initially, he was invited to come onto building sites when they were 75% to 80% complete. By then, it’s often too late for any truly effective changes to be made.

“I never like to look at it in a negative way; I do what I can because I’m coming in as a diagnostician. With my 33 years as an architect, I can understand how a building works and I do what I can to help the team see where the problems are. The biggest part of my job is site inspections, which I perform at several points of the construction. If I come in at 75% of the construction, there’s only so much I can do,” he explains.

However, he says that things have changed dramatically, and he hopes the Siemens building can be the flagship of the building envelope movement.

DECEMBER 2012

“I’m very optimistic about it. I’ve been there for all the testing, for all the site inspections. I issue reports and go to weekly meetings with the team, where I’m able to maintain an independent position. So it’s been really good, they have very high standards, it’s a very interesting building and it’s going to be the largest single air-tightness test in the UAE and it should be ready by December,” he explains.

As such, he points out that other projects would be well served to follow that lead and adopt a stance similar to Siemens.

“There are excellent facade designers out there doing fabulous jobs on these buildings and they perform great in testing, but if you don’t put them together correctly in the field, this is where buildings leak,” he asserts.

“It’s so simple, so why does it happen?

Because somebody made a little change somewhere and because they weren’t looking at (the big picture), they’re not looking at the building envelope as a system to keep out air and moisture. The more complex a system, the more chances there are of failure. This is why I’m out there, to educate and create awareness.

These issues are real and the evidence is irrefutable. No set of figures can disprove that your window leaks; it’s reality.”

“There’s more of a growing understanding. I think people need to realise how different these forces are in this extreme climate, the incredible amount of electricity that goes to air conditioning and also, think about the building envelope as a system rather than an assemblage of parts.” n

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ON SITE BASRA

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Bringing Basra back Melanie Mingas visits Al Fayha Group’s Basra operation to find out how the company is fighting the odds and power shortages to help re-build the city brick by brick

F

or Al Fayha, the mission to rebuild Basra is a personal one. Dedicated to overcoming the power cuts, skills shortages and war, the group owns and operates eight companies across Iraq, which between them supplies almost every major project in Central and South Iraq.

With interests covering precast, real estate, steel works, shipping, oil & gas, fleet services, marine works and engineering, it is one of the largest private sector employers in Southern Iraq and has a personal goal to be at the forefront of the country’s regeneration.

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“Even though we are facing problems, Iraq is my country.

We know the customs and the people. This gives us experience, which provides the flexibility to deal with what happens there.”

DECEMEBER 2012

“We feel things are going in the correct direction for us in Iraq right now. The worst has passed us, the security is going well and a lot of international companies are moving into the country,” observes managing director Khalid Al-Omar, before proudly revealing that, despite on-going wars, the groups’ factories have never closed their doors.

Of its four precast factories located throughout Iraq, Al Fayha’s Basra plant is the largest, employing 1600 workers and producing 400m³ of precast daily, mainly used for Pre Cast Piles on local projects. Co-located with a steel plant, and warehouses rented out to third-party clients, the plant boasts three precast production lines for pre-stress products, girders and slabs.

The product range covers concrete support walls, hollow core slabs for roofs, pipelines, pipe sleepers, manholes, walls, fences, pipe supports, pits and water tanks. Additionally Al Fayha is the only manufacturer producing tower guards.

All this is achieved against a back-drop of hardship, with the factory forced to install its own generators and personally

ON SITE BASRA

Big projects After a flurry of contract signings in Q2 of this year, the Basra factory was supplying more than ten projects across various fields when Big Project Middle East visited in October. But that still is not enough for the ambitious Al-Ibrahim.

“We are not satisfied; we always want to be bigger,” he proclaims. “We try only to focus on the larger projects now, as

“We can do a string of $10 million projects together, but have to segregate the project types we need”

these have the profit margins to allow us to grow as a business. For example, if we have one $10m dollar project and another that is $3m, it doesn’t matter because both require the same effort on the ground.

“We can do a string of $10 million projects together, but have to segregate the project types we need,” he adds.

Of the current projects, the three largest are: the Al Fayha Residential Complex; Multiple supporting projects at the Sport

SPORTING ACTIVITY Al Fayha has worked on Basra’s striking Sports City Stadium complex.

Project Name

Sport City Stadium Complex

Location

Basra

Site Area

65,000 seat main stadium. 10,000 seat secondary stadium

Construction Cost Completion date

$600/metre 2012 end

Low cost houses. Services will cost more in this area

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

train its workers to maintain standards.

Considering what the facility has faced previously, conditions are moderate to say the least.

Driven by the sheer scale of development across Basra, Al Fayha can barely keep pace and despite its army of workers, Deputy CEO Salahuddin Al-Ibrahim, says the local market is significantly bigger than the company.

“The market is so much more than us; Iraq could have at least ten precast companies of this size,” he explains.

“We do have competitors and outsiders see this as a lucrative industry, but you can’t manufacture without quality and sometimes quality can affect our competitor’s product, especially those demanded by the international oil companies. They are looking for a standard that cannot be provided by everyone in our community.”

Since buying the facility from the Iraqi government in 1991, project highlights have included Ur Dry Dock, the first such facility in Iraq; civil works at the Iraqi Crude Oil Expedition Export Project; the Abu Floos Fertilizer Factory; and the Al Arab Mosque (see box for other projects).

The project specs are not for the fainthearted. The $3.5 million Ur Dry Dock ran for three years and has a capacity of 4000t. Precast products were used to cover all sides of the docks, spanning a built up area of 2500m² and a total area of 50,000m².

The project also included paving the area using tubular piles and cross bridges, with a link bridge of 1m depth and a side walk of 100m length and 12m wide – all made from precast.

The Al Arab Mosque renovation and expansion project was conducted on an existing, 200 year old structure. During the works, Al Fayha constructed and installed a 9m diameter dome, reaching 14.5m in height, and a 30m high minaret over a 12month period.

27

ON SITE BASRA

bigprojectME.com

Al Fayha Group Companies n Al Fayha Precast Company

n Karbala Precast Company

n Al Zubair Steel Industries Company

n Wataneyah RMS Company

n The National Engineering Contracting Company

n Al Baraak Marine

Services Company

n Ur Dry Dock n Al Jummar Trading

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Company

City Stadium Complex; and a logistics city at Al Faw Port.

Al Fayha Residential Complex is located in Zubair and was made possible through the allocation of 250,000m2 of land granted by the local municipality to Al Fayha Real Estate Company.

Three housing types will be developed for the complex: 207 single storey units; 178 two storey units; and nine three storey buildings, with four flats per storey. In total, the delivered complex will have just under 500 units and will be supported by community services, such as childcare, healthcare and retail.

Located near Basra International Airport, Sports City is due for completion in 2013. The centre-piece of the development is a 65,000 seat main stadium, surrounded by a 10,000 seat secondary stadium, training fields, team

DECEMEBER 2012

housing and an ornamental lake. Work at Al Faw Port’s Maamer Logistics Facility is currently half completed, with full completion due in six months.

The project includes labour accommodation, helicopter landing area, concrete fencing with tower guards, open yards and warehouses.

GRAND OPENING The Sports City Complex official opening.

LoCal pioneer Al Fayha isn’t just contributing towards the re-build of Basra, but it’s helping to pioneer the local business environment by creating its own technical management infrastructures in-house.

While the firm boasts a number of projects – that it both supplies pre-cast for and initiates through the real estate division – funding projects, making the materials and executing the work still pose logistical challenges.

Project Name

Al Fayha Residential Complex

Location

Zubair

Site Area

250,000sqm

Building type

Low-cost houses 493 units

Construction cost

$600/metre

WITH AROUND SEVEN MILLION WINDOWS CLEANED ANNUALLY FOR ABOUT 220 CLIENTS, DELIVERED AT THE HIGHEST INDUSTRY SAFETY STANDARDS…

ON SITE BASRA

bigprojectME.com

GLOBAL REACH Al Fayha demands its team have international knowhow.

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In the face of such difficulties, CEO Sarmad Al-Khudairi has personally headhunted a core team of management professionals to work behind the scenes.

“The senior managers were handpicked under the guidelines of the managing director Khalid Al-Omar. They should have Iraqi experience, GCC or western exposure, customer service-focused high dedication for quality and with a proven good track record of completing tasks on time and on budget,” says Al Khudairi.

In recent months this team has created and implemented IT, HR and accounting systems, built from scratch by its in-house

DECEMEBER 2012

talent, largely because such tools aren’t readily available on the local market and demanded by the international companies Al-Fayha partners with.

“The system doesn’t stand alone, it relies on people. In our company, we have started to implement a number of systems and we are the only ones here that do that,” Al-Ibrahim shares.

Despite facing further issues in the funding and execution of projects, Al-Omar continues to lead his team towards the firm’s end goal. Speaking candidly, he says that while life on the ground in Iraq isn’t easy, seeing the results al Fayha produces drives the company to continue on its mission.

“This is my job, it is my career. Even though we are facing problems there, Iraq is my country. We know the customs and the people and we have knowledge of the whole country. This gives us experience, which provides the flexibility to deal with what happens there. We have faced two wars but we have never shut down the factory,” he says.

Considering the incredible level of opportunity currently emerging from Iraq, it could be time for the hard work to pay off. n

As a group, Al Fayha has been operating since 1920 and supporting the Basra precast plant are further facilities in Karbala and Baghdad, covering 115,000sqm and 300,000sqm respectively.

Despite its prominence and wide ranging operations, the group keeps a low profile in the country, even though its name, and those of its subsidiaries, is famous with locals.

“Iraq isn’t an easy market, but for us we just have to jump into the situation. We cannot stop no matter what happens in the country and we cannot just move. We are looking to have a new logistics facility in Basra and we are looking to increase our capability to meet the growing market,” Mr. Khalid Al-Omar says.

He adds: “For us we are putting in more investment in our human resources and machinery. 2012 has been good and hopefully 2013 will be better.”

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COVER STORY BASRA

bigprojectME.com

Operation Basra:

regenerating the jewel

Location

Basra

Population

4 million

Investment sectors

Transport, housing, tourism, industrial, commercial, heath and education

Budget

$37bn

It has been starved of investment, razed by war and its people still live without reliable power, yet an ambitious regeneration plan is beginning to take shape.

Melanie Mingas visits Basra to find out about the multi-billion dollar projects that will transform the troubled province

T

hirty years ago Basra was the centre of GCC tourism; a fishing port with commercial and political significance that stood on 82% of the fourth largest national oil reserves in the world.

Yet it paid the highest price of any Iraqi province during the rule of Saddam Hussein, who refused to invest in the “vulnerable” port city because he believed its location made it a target for attack.

Starved of investment and razed by war, the ramshackle houses and shop fronts of the city today are nothing but an eerie reminder of its golden age.

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The damage permeates everything.

The decayed houses where Basra’s four

DECEMBER 2012

million residents live are surrounded by rubble and powered by generators that sit on the street outside.

But for the people who still call the province home this is a land that will soon have the chance to restore its potential.

The banks of the Shat Al Arab river, where locals once walked and fished, are now punctuated with armed check points; and while fishing boats remain, they keel over, lodged in the polluted sands because the once famous river was dammed upstream.

Driven by the vision of local governors, who themselves grew up in the city, Basra is tipped to become the region’s largest construction market, needing everything from houses, hospitals, roads and ports, to the underground utilities required to serve them.

The vast date palm forest that lined one bank – estimated by the UN to have more than 14 million trees – was deliberately burned because it was believed to be rebel hiding grounds. Today the land still lies barren.

“It’s the second largest city by population and has most of the oil, but it’s probably the most damaged,” says executive director of Dewan, Ammar Al Assam, whose father left Iraq in the 1970s to establish his architecture and engineering firm in the UAE.

COVER STORY BASRA

“For various reasons it’s always been the city that hasn’t been developed, even though the potential is massive. As Iraqis we have romantic ideas of the city and you see now it’s rundown but at one time they used to call it the Venice of the Middle East.

“We believe this is where the money is.

Everybody runs to Kurdistan because people believe it is safe but the real investment will be in the south,” he adds explaining that the vision is to transform Basra into the country’s financial centre.

Powering the dream Iraq’s Central Bank says GDP will increase an average 9.4% annually until at least 2016, as oil production soars from the current 2.9 million barrels per day to 8.5 million.

To calculate a dollar value on that increase, consider that Iraq as a whole drew a higher than expected $83bn from oil revenues in 2011 alone.

“The oil and gas industry is what is driving the train in Basra, central Iraq and Kurdistan, but government cannot continue to make this kind of money and not put it into the country,” says Greg Holmes, president of construction, engineering and logistics firm Groundworks Inc. “Once the money is being spent, the infrastructure projects will begin and that will be huge,” Holmes adds.

region’s private sector by pledging support in establishing JVs, favourable business conditions and the all-important financial returns.

Head of the Committee of Economic Development (CED), Mahmood T Najem Al-Madsoosi, says this is one of the “most important” roles of the ministry and that practical support from Basra Governorate will be forthcoming.

“We will give first priority for the private sector to bring investment and services to Basra, because the private sector is the most important part of the redevelopment,” he comments, adding that one element of this

“It’s always been the city that hasn’t been developed, even though the potential is massive. As Iraqis we have romantic ideas of the city and it’s rundown. they used to call it the Venice of the Middle East”

will see former state-owned production facilities, that had previously been shut down, sold off to international industrial and petrochemical companies.

That’s exactly what is planned. Driven by the petrodollars reaped from ever increasing oil production, Basra is about to be restored in line with an ambition that even its own governors say will soon rival that of Dubai.

Basra’s petrodollars, are set to triple in order to fund the developments planned by Basra Investment Commission (see chart).

The Commission, which can be reached via its website www.investbasrah.com, is specifically looking for investment in housing; malls; business centres; education, agriculture, health and industrial facilities, including a ‘manufacturing city’; and transportation projects, including ports.

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MIDDLE EAST

The plans to achieve these objectives are aggressive; business and economic development bodies are courting the

33

COVER STORY BASRA

bigprojectME.com

Basra as a province will benefit from federal law structures which grant the financial autonomy to spend its petrodollars as required.

37b

Money promised by infrastructure law

The size of the population means Basra will also receive a larger share for investment than other areas and, in June, Iraq’s housing and construction minister, Mohammed Al Derajy, declared a significant share would be used for large-scale infrastructure projects, including housing.

The sales will be offered as full or part investment and production lines could even be sold off individually.

The first step Despite the means and the will, opportunity is not carte blanche for an easy ride. Unlike other emerging construction markets in the region – which require a level of tangible infrastructure to be completed before real work can begin – Basra’s key issue is administrative, and none of its ambition will be achieved if the correct legislative structures are not in place.

Continuing his promises, Holmes comments: “We will give our support to help build a strong private sector here in Basra, especially for work on the government [construction] contracts. At the same time, we will also support the establishment of joint ventures between foreign and local companies.”

Al Assam states: “Even the Basra Governorate says their problem isn’t money it’s administration, project management and getting contractors. There are no contractors in Iraq who can develop to the quality people are used to. Because of its history, Iraq has been served by a very centralised government state and all the big projects were government owned, so there was no private sector.”

The pledges are backed by the current head of the Iraqi Business Union, Subeh H Al-Hashemi, who frequently travels throughout the Europe Union and the UK on trade missions to promote Basra’s construction opportunities.

“We need foreign companies to come and work in education, health, construction and investment, and we are travelling often to increase awareness of the opportunities in Basra.”

Investment projects by sector, promoted by basra investment commission Residential Tourism Agricultural Health Industrial Education Transport Commercial

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Other

DECEMBER 2012

While the courtship of international companies will aim to resolve this situation and finally establish a dynamic private sector, the market’s new players are unlikely to get involved without legislative guarantees of both work and payment.

The backbone of these measures will be the $37 billion infrastructure law, currently being pushed through Iraq’s parliament by Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki.

The bill details the conditions for financial partnerships between the government and the international firms that will re-build the country. In short it’s a guarantee on the government’s pledge of ‘if you build it, we will pay you’.

Without sufficient financial facilities from Iraqi banks, against which native companies and the government itself can borrow, it’s the only option by which to fund projects ahead of the oil industry windfall.

COVER STORY BASRA

New Basra Of all the projects planned for the existing city, the largest will see an entirely new city constructed.

Comparable to the relationship between Dubai’s creek and marina areas: ‘New Basra’ will be located 35km away from the existing Basra, on a 100sqkm plot that will evolve over the next 30 years to become home to one million people.

Named ‘Madinat Al Nakheel’ or ‘City of Palms’, the effective ‘relocation’ of Basra, will in turn allow for the existing historic city to be regenerated through a number of beautification programmes.

Detailed on the governorate’s own website prior to any official announcement, the city design was recently contracted to Dewan and construction is expected to begin early in 2013.

“Companies, if they are willing to enter to re-build Iraq, have to accept the idea of financing the projects themselves,” says deputy CEO of Al Fayha, Salahuding Al Ibrahim. “The government should provide some assurances that they will pay the money because these firms will not be paid immediately. With a budget of $37 billion, they can build a lot,” he adds.

Another dimension of this legislation will tie up the loop holes that currently allow unsubstantiated figures to abound when projects are announced.

Al-Ibrahim reveals that the company has bid on projects valued at a one amount, only to see them tendered for much more.

“On one occasion we bid for 60% of a project at $53m then heard that it had been awarded for more than $400mn, when [at 60%] it should not have been much more than $120mn” Last year, the country ranked 175th out of 182 countries in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, a US-based anti-corruption watchdog.

While Al Maliki’s response was to assert that corruption is as dangerous to the stability of the country as terrorism, he is yet to successfully introduce the one tool that will tackle this.

Although no official project announcement has been made, Basra Governorate is vocal about the development and has already begun promoting the construction and investment opportunities Madinat Al Nakheel will bring.

“There are many projects being released that are worth $1bn each but companies aren’t jumping on these because it’s a balloon price and there is no genuine funding for it and no body to regulate that,” says Holmes. “Projects still run on 22 hour-a-day generators, but the country isn’t broke. The money just isn’t getting down to the people and the people don’t know.

Basra already marks Dewan’s largest market outside the UAE, where the firm has won design competitions for governorate properties and Basra Cultural palace (pictured), to be developed along the banks of the Shat Al Arab.

“They think they’re war-torn but the country is rated as the highest growing economy in the world by Bloomberg. They have a 20% growth estimated for 2012 and if you have these equations your people should be reaping the rewards.”

But even with laws in place, the execution of projects may be delayed still.

As would be expected in a country that hasn’t seen a new public highway built in 30 years, the barriers to entry begin

“Companies, if they are willing to enter to re-build Iraq, have to accept the idea of financing the projects themselves. these firms will not be paid immediately”

decEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

Widely regarded as vague and unstructured, opposition politicians have criticised the bill for failing to detail exactly how these financial structures will work, the projects they will be applied to, or the tendering process. For a country previously rife with corruption, these are fundamental guarantees for any prospective contractor.

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COVER STORY BASRA

“There are opportunities in the UAE, Saudi and Qatar that senior management want. Iraq is a hardship placement. THe last place they would want To go to”

with the basics of powering projects in terms of both energy and man power. Yet despite the problems, it may transpire that the contractors who do not dare will never get a look in.

For Basra it’s a race against the clock, with local government unofficially aiming to transform the area within a decade.

As part of the plan to achieve this, the Iraqi Business Union exists to facilitate more cooperative entry regulations than other leading regional markets.

It also provides “help and support” in any shape or form, which includes the arrangement of entry and partnerships with local companies who attend the regular trade conferences it holds in London and Europe.

Union chairman, Subeh H. Al-Hashemi, says: “We need foreign companies to come and work in education, health, construction and investment, and we are travelling often to increase awareness of the opportunities in Basra.

“The fate of Iraq lies in Basra,” he adds.

Similar support is forthcoming from the local CED, with Al Madsoosi saying: “We give the full support for the private sector to private plan especially for the industrial sector and give money and provide human resources and make seminars and exhibitions.”

movement of labourers and their tools and gain good advice on HSE procedures.

“Firstly, contractors should rely on the banking facilities from outside Iraq and secondly, they should understand how to operate on the ground here, and that includes working cultures and importing labour and tools. You need the right paperwork,” says Al Ibrahim. Continuing to share his experience of working with one contractor, he explains the most significant catch 22 is the C-suite skills shortage.

“The company heads sent to Iraq are not engineers, they are crane or rig operators who are posted as site managers just because they are western, and they do this because the western executives do not want to work in Iraq. They will promote anybody into these roles and without the experience to recognise and tackle problems.”

Basra is dependent on the expertise of international contractors and facing such a barrier can jeopardise the entire re-build.

“We hoped these companies would send expertise that would benefit the situation and improve our capacities. There is a procedure to follow in projects and we

look to them to guide us through this, but they do not do that,” Al Ibrahim reveals.

The attractiveness of other Gulf markets doesn’t help the situation, says MacDonald and Co director, Ben Waddilove.

“This probably would be the case because there are other opportunities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar that senior management would want to take. Iraq is a hardship placement and these people are senior so it is the last place they would want to go to, especially with a family,” he says.

Those who are there will vouch for the difficulties that exist, but they also maintain that Iraq is less difficult to access than Saudi Arabia, has more opportunity and provides higher profit margins.

“I expect in the next year or two there will be major names going into Basra. The market is so large that it needs 50 architects, 100 contractors; it’s competitive but it needs everybody to go in and there is opportunity for everybody,” says Al Assam.

Whatever coming legislation brings, projects must and will happen. Any contractor, sub-contractor or supplier who shies away will be at a huge disadvantage.

Al Hashemi says: “I wish what all the people here wish: that Basra is returned to how it was before the wars, when it was a popular and thriving city. They were the golden years of Iraq, especially for Basra. It will be even better than Dubai because we have the economic energy to achieve our vision.” n

With power shortages, little protection for foreign investors and security threats still reported in the global media, the realities of life in Basra sound harsh. But they shouldn’t detract from the fact that life inside is very different; although Basra is a city in crisis, it does have the money to buy its way out of the current situation.

decEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

The message to contractors is clear: arrange your own project finance before entering, understand the restrictions regarding the

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SPECial Report Contracts

bigprojectME.com

Wrong end of the telescope

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MIDDLE EAST

Observing fundamental problems in tendering and a cultural disposition to risk, Hill International’s regional SVP and managing director for claims, David Brodie-Stedman, says that without change the best global contractors will be driven out of the Middle East

DECEMBER 2012

SPECial Report Contracts

W

Reducing risk: David Brodie-Stedman’s tips n “For contractors

establishing strategic relationships with clients is key to reducing their risks.”

n “The independence

of the engineer on projects is misunderstood and that independence is time and time again compromised.”

n “When an owner

here – whether it’s a department or a rich individual – the most important thing is to buy the best strategic advice at the start of a project and take heed in what that advice says.”

n “You want to improve how contracts are executed, either procure guys who really understand or buy some training programmes.”

n “Multistage tendering

focussed on the quality of the contract will ensure better outcomes.”

BOOM AND BUST The risks in construction are getting ever higher.

on share prices such contract wins would stimulate.

But Brodie-Stedman says that now some of the key GCC markets have experienced a boom and bust cycle this will no longer be enough.

Not one to sugar-coat situations, he observes: “This region risks driving away some of the best international contractors because the risks are just becoming far too high.

“Employers and owners in this region need to look hard at themselves and how they can ensure the best outcomes on their projects. In terms of progressive steps, I often hear from employers and contractor organisations that maybe we need to change the fundamental basis of contracting in the region.

“If you want to improve how contracts are executed, either employ a team that really understands, or train them. But move away from the lottery that is open tendering, where whoever makes the biggest mistake wins the job.”

Eastern experience With experience of working in almost every global jurisdiction, Brodie-Stedman’s point of reference for such calls is based on his firsthand experience of the Far East’s economic turmoil during the 1990s.

This included his time on an informal procurement forum collectively tasked with nothing less than steering the successful execution of an aviation megaproject in the region. His role assumed responsibility for the management of all procurement and post contract management, with the aim of minimising commercial risk.

The forum worked collectively to drive quality into the procurement process and front end management of component projects. He instigated a multistage, “rigorous”, tendering process that attracted a small number of expert prices rather than tens of prices from “anybody who was willing to submit one”.

“We had done enough work to satisfy ourselves that among these prices was the required skill set to deliver

“In terms of having strong legal frameworks to resolve disputes that is something that is missing across the GCC. Changes in the legal framework in many of the jurisdictions here could dramatically improve the resolution of disputes”

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

hile the image projected of the Middle East market is one of record breakers, groundbreakers and modernity, to David Brodie-Stedman it is the world’s “most aggressive”, winning itself nothing more than the title of global dispute capital.

A breeding ground for big-budget megaprojects, contractors have no choice but to bid, despite the inexperience of employers; a heady combination of circumstances that results in elevated levels of risk and a tendency to tender projects prematurely and without set end objectives.

It’s a culture that consistently makes Hill International’s ten regional offices the busiest in its 110-strong global network; demanding a 70-strong claims team in Dubai alone.

“Claims aren’t a consequence of inefficiency in the process; they’re a consequence of overly aggressive pricing, overly ambitious programmes at the front end of projects, and poor engineering,” asserts Brodie-Stedman.

“My biggest frustration is poor quality in the design and project management.

It starts way before the contractors get on board and is almost built into the process; it’s the biggest problem and that’s what the industry really needs to look at here,” he says.

Calling for nothing less than a seismic overhaul in the award and execution of contracts, Brodie-Stedman continues to point the finger at shortfalls in the analysis of project outcomes and the “lottery” that is open tendering.

Reporting that whoever makes the biggest mistake wins the job, he recalls observing experienced contractor clients in the Middle East having no clear advantage over those with little experience but a lower price, on some of the most specialist projects in the market.

“If you follow the timeline of a project most have fundamental problems built in before they even go to tender and that in itself is a problem from the outset.

“There is a focus here on getting the lowest tender price and urgently, and they’ll even go to the cheapest bidder and try to negotiate the price down further.

It’s looking through the wrong end of the telescope; you should be looking at the cheapest outturn price.”

It’s a serious prognosis and the elevated levels of risk that result from such structure in the market prompt an even more serious prediction.

In the past contractors embraced the catch-22 situation, taking on lump sum, fixed price risk with employers who often had no experience of specialist projects, purely for the positive impact

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SPECial Report Contracts

bigprojectME.com

And while the current situation remains one of raised prices to counteract risk, the future is still bright: “I do think things will change. Sheer market forces will dictate that change because margins are so low.”

Market force Worryingly, the markets tipped to have the greatest force over the coming years are not those that have sustained and survived economic problems, but those that were sheltered from the impact of global financial problems.

This doesn’t bode well for those contractors looking for a yellow brick road out of the UAE, as it means the legal frameworks and lessons gained from such experiences do not exist. Ironically the safest market in terms of post-crisis caution today is in fact the UAE, although focus has now turned elsewhere. As economic storms raged in the UAE and

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that project successfully. That’s totally changing things and it’s completely unheard of in this market.

“The first time we rolled that out we finished the project on time and on budget with zero claims and a very happy end user,” he says.

Continuing to draw on his Far East experiences, Brodie-Stedman says the establishment of proper legislation also contributed to successful project outcomes.

With systems based on the English legal system, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur today all have highly regulated construction industries.

But it wasn’t always rosy. Not only were legislative frameworks remedially applied, but the role of the engineer had been taking a hit, as project owners and the engineers themselves struggled to comprehend and assert the independence of their roles.

As the market lurched towards its tenth year of “increasingly frenetic” activity, larger disputes and lower margins, it was market forces rather than legislation, that sparked the chain reaction that eventually led to change.

“After 10 years of gradually more frenetic activity and larger disputes, people just stepped back and thought ‘there must be better ways of doing this’.”

Predicting the same shift in the Middle East, Brodie-Stedman recommends the implementation of strong legal frameworks – that are currently missing in the Middle East – to “dramatically improve” the resolution of disputes and therefore minimise the burden of risk on contractors.

DECEMBER 2012

“They must take heed in what that advice says. If you are told it will take five years, don’t plan a project to be completed in 24 months”

Five major Hill International Projects JABAL OMAR DEVELOPMENT - Makkah, Saudi Arabia - Confidential

MUSCAT AND SALALAH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS - Oman - Value: $109,000,000

HAMAD MEDICAL CITY - Doha Qatar - Value: $660,000,000

SHAMS ABU DHABI - Abu Dhabi, UAE - Value: $2,700,000,000

BARWA NEW CAIRO GREEN CITY - Cairo, Egypt - Value: $6,900,000,000

Europe, Saudi Arabia launched multibillion dollar projects in succession.

Today contractors, suppliers, architects and manufacturers are still arriving at the Kingdom’s gates waiting for their share of this opportunity. Yet it’s a jurisdiction where, despite the recent enactment of new arbitral laws based upon the UNCITRAL model, dispute settlement remains difficult.

A similar rush is gaining momentum in Qatar where the Commercial Bank reports $125bn of construction and energy projects will be tendered over the coming four years.

In terms of legislation, the state is currently in the process of implementing new arbitration laws to support a fairer and more transparent dispute resolution process, but again these are yet to be auctioned.

“The markets with mega-project activity at the moment are jurisdictions that didn’t develop during the pre-financial crisis boom and they haven’t been through the same painful learning curves.

“In places where the projects are bigger and more risky, the legal framework is even more tenuous. The employer organisations have just been set up to deliver the next billion dollar project and they have never done it before.”

SPECial Report Contracts

unraveled, exposing harsh market truths and undermining reputations, including the below par performance of a number of developers who had launched multiple tower projects without enough paid up capital to even buy a single unit inside such projects.

Brodie-Stedman calls the catastrophic fall out that ensued nothing less than an “absolute disgrace”, as on demand guarantees were cashed to keep the developers afloat.

“I think one of the best and most beautiful changes in this region would be a move away from on-demand bank guarantees and that would stop the abuse of contractor’s guarantees.

“These mechanisms aren’t there to fund under-performing developers, they are there as a remedy in case of a fundamental breach of contract by a contractor, that’s when you call a bank guarantee. Not just when you run out of cash.”

Turning his attention to the project owners, the advice is time-conscious planning: “Maybe rather than dashing to get the project out to the market in six months, the professional thing to do would be to do it in eight months time. It could still result in the same end date but would be far less painful and less risky.”

Assessing the role of the engineer in the whole cycle he adds: “The independence of the engineer on projects is misunderstood and that independence is time and time again compromised.

‘Employers sometimes don’t appreciate that the engineer is normally contractual bound to discharge his duties as contract administrator in an objective and impartial manner.

“The engineer is there as an independent, and equally engineers do not speak enough to reiterate that independence, and they deny that they are a mouthpiece.”

Finally analysing the composition of project teams, Brodie-Stedman also advises that sourcing talent with ‘global experience’ provides no guarantee against the unknown.

“You only achieve quality by getting things right at the start. It’s difficult to just get one project director in two thirds of the way through the job and expect them to turn things into a success.

“I’m not an advocate of bringing a western team in to manage a project. The most important thing is to buy the best strategic advice at the start of a project – whether that’s here or internationally – and to take heed in what that advice says. If you are told a project will take five years, don’t plan for it to be completed in 24 months.” n

David Brodie-Armstrong Educated as a quantity surveyor in the UK, David Brodie-Stedman spent equal amounts of time working with both contractors and consultants, resulting in a “rounded career profile” that he credits as being integral to the work Hill International carries out today.

Specialising in the resolution of disputes before they reach arbitration or litigation, Brodie-Stedman has worked on some of the highest profile jobs globally across Asia, the Middle East and Europe; many of which had large political and social implications and were debated in national press on a daily basis.

“We should be sensible, professional and pragmatic enough to resolve our own problems without relying on an adjudicator or arbitrator.”

Regardless of the profile of these cases, he says his personal career highlights have been the cases for mid-tier contractors that may not have been for the highest profile projects, but were life or death situations for the businesses involved.

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

Looking forward Regardless of how safe a market it is, commercial forces will lure the industry there. In the face of such risk, BrodieStedman’s messages to the industry are clear: Learn from the past and apply greater due diligence in future.

This applies to everything from the establishment of authority on projects to reducing payment risk by exercising greater due diligence prior to signing contracts.

When markets crashed in 2008 and 2009 a chain of sharp and immoral activities

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Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani & Sons Co. Tariq Al-Qahtani & Brothers

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E mail: info@ahqmachinery.com

CONstruction IT

Hervé Hamelin

Getting your site mobile

With mobile solutions, project teams communicate more efficiently, collaborate more effectively and deliver more successful projects contractors attend numerous meetings and may travel on business. With mobile apps, they can review documents, drawings and BIM files, and respond to communications on the go.

Project managers, architects and engineers typically run multiple projects at a time, working on site and from their offices.

Mobile apps help them coordinate the processes, information and people involved in all of their projects.

Site managers and staff ensure compliance with safety, quality assurance, audit, and other requirements on site.

Mobile devices enable them to access and distribute information, minimising the time and risk involved in manual data entry.

Subcontractors, who work primarily on-site, rely on mobile devices for on-thespot communication. They require realtime information access and collaboration capabilities.

The bottom line is that a common mobile platform for collaboration empowers project teams to create, capture, share, and control information and processes wherever they are and at any time.

accountability while reducing cost and risk.

Specially adapted and intuitive apps and devices enable users to become productive quickly. Secure online access to documents, drawings and BIM files accelerates schedules and improves outcomes.

The larger keypads and displays of tablets support rapid updates and graphical communications. Capturing issues on site and assigning them for resolution dramatically increases the efficiency and accuracy of field inspections and reduces delays and penalties.

All of us – developers, contractors and consultants – work in an increasingly competitive environment. Mobile cloud collaboration solutions save us time and money, and fulfill the promise of higherquality projects – delivered on schedule and within budget. n Hervé Hamelin is general manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Aconex, provider of the world’s most widely used cloud-based platform for managing information, processes and people throughout the lifecycle of construction.

The Impact of the Cloud Cloud software – software that runs on the internet – is being used in a wide variety of sectors but I believe that in construction, cloud mobile apps can be clearly critical to project management success. Building them on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology is also vital. The cloud is secure and reliable, and it also avoids the deployment, operations and maintenance costs of on-site hardware and software solutions.

I believe cloud-based mobile apps offer powerful features and benefits.

Firstly seamless mobility. Including Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) support this improves productivity and

Tel: +966 3 802 4938 Fax: +966 3 826 9894 www.ahqsons.com info@ahqsons.com

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

W

hether in Riyadh or Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, it’s easy to take for granted just how mobile and connected our work lives have become. Globally, too, statistics on the growth of mobile data are compelling. The Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2011-2016, predicts that mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold over the next five years, with eight billion smartphones and five billion tablets deployed by 2015.

In an August 2012 survey, McGrawHill Construction Industry Insights found that 97% of general contractors and 87% of subcontractors use mobile devices on construction sites.

It also found that 86% of each segment allows its employees to use personal mobile devices on site. The survey also revealed that mobile adoption is expected to increase steadily through 2015.

Clearly, the construction industry, which is sometimes slow to adopt new technology, has embraced this trend.

Construction project teams can benefit from mobility. With mobile collaboration tools, they can: capture photos, video and audio on site and disseminate them to team members; access and manage project documents and communications anytime, anywhere; review, update and comment on images, drawings and Building Information Models (BIM); manage tasks, issues and action items; edit project information offline and synchronise files when connectivity is restored; and manage inspection, re-inspection and resolution of defects and other issues.

The responsibilities and work styles of different project team members provide insight into the common benefits of a mobile platform for collaboration.

Building owners, developers and

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SPECIAL FEATURE READYMIX

bigprojectME.com

In the mix Spurred on by government spending, developers have shifted focus to infrastructure and residential projects. Ready mix contractors are not finding the changes easy

R

eady mix contractors used to be fixated on building high in the region but as the sector enters 2013 it must concern itself with what is happening on the ground. With a few exceptions such as the King Abdullah Financial District in Saudi Arabia, the bulk of their work is now coming from residential and civil construction.

No country typifies this shift than the UAE. While the rebooting of its tower projects in areas of Dubai such as the Marina have been used in some quarters as sign of its returning health, it is the expansive villa projects at places such as Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island that are providing steady if unspectacular work.

With the UAE market – still the second largest in the Gulf after Saudi Arabia – well

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Tel: +966 3 802 4938 Fax: +966 3 826 9894 www.ahqsons.com info@ahqsons.com

DECEMBER 2012

over capacity and over stocked with ready mix suppliers, some companies such as Binani Cement Factory have turned their attention to other products and other markets.

Anil Parashar, business head at the company, which has a capacity of 2 million tonnes, explains that the company now has a wide geographical spread.

“We are surviving, but the market is subdued,” he states. “But you have to be positive. We can now export all over the place. Saudi and Oman are good markets, and with Qatar hopefully picking up soon we can be optimistic that we can double capacity in the next year.”

His calculations suggest that the company can operate at 60-70% of capacity by 2014, especially if the Qatar

SPECIAL FEATURE READYMIX

“The project is costing us in terms of the equipment, the manpower and of course I need to get the profit and income. when you think about the media coverage, it is a good thing for us” change in the prices of materials.

“Last year the price for ready-mix was 380 riyals per cm3 it is now 80 riyals less. There is no stability in prices and a shortage in material. There is a lot of competition but really there is not enough stability," he remarks.

Ali says that the media's obsession with a potential boom has played its part in bringing uncertainty to the market.

He argues that they have too quickly covered ghost projects while misrepresenting the currently depressed state of construction activity. However he says that, until the projects relating to the World Cup start, the company will have to fight the tough conditions head on "Sometimes a big project comes to you and you succeed, sometimes you do not.”

With competition so intense and projects thin on the ground, Qatar’s ready mix companies have to be flexible when assessing your costs during tendering.

They also suffer from project lags and stop-start construction.

“If you make a deal you must follow it. On some projects my people might be on-site for five hours just waiting, without working – but you have to follow the contract. How do you face price increases and pass it on to the customer? You make it 290 then it becomes 300. But, then, the customer has to pay because he needs it.”

The state’s control of cement production, prices and restrictions on imports could create a bottleneck later on down the line, making life difficult for developers and contractors, he adds.

“Of course it could happen as there’s no cement from outside. For World Cup 2022, the state is changing, after six years there will be a new Qatar. 20 years ago there was no Qatar, how much it will cost no problem, time - very fast,” he says. “How fast? Well they don’t know." n

IN BATCHES Saudi remains a strong market, contractors in the UAE are chasing smaller projects.

Tel: +966 3 802 4938 Fax: +966 3 826 9894 www.ahqsons.com info@ahqsons.com

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

market begins to pick up. The current situation for that country’s suppliers is, however, a frustrating one.

Boredom masquerading as cynicism has crept into most discussions on the construction centred around Qatar.

The long lead time to the World Cup in 2022 and the re-adjustment of the predating Vision 2030 plans to invest in the country’s future has left many wondering if the optimism of last year was real or imagined. Ready mix contractors in the country are struggling to continue to be profitable.

Peter Latham at Ready Mix Qatar, a JV led by LaFarge, which operates 22 batching plants in a dozen different locations, says that the company is only experiencing fragmented demand.

Ready Mix Qatar supplied to the Qatar museum in Doha and has helped construct natural gas drilling facilities in Qatar (where LaFarge supplied over 2 million3 of concrete in total) but Latham says that nobody is sure when the Qatar market will experience its own boom.

Although the soon to open New Doha International Airport, the recent spate of infrastructure contracts and the enormous Doha New Port Project are all signs that the country of Qatar can really put a shift in when it wants to.

For now, ready mix producers have to be patient, says Khalid Ali, project manager at FBA Ready Mix. A sub contractor with China Harbour Company on New Doha Port Project, the company is currently working with batch plant provider Unibeton (the plant has the capacity to fulfill the requirements of Phase 1 of NDPP, estimated at 1,500,000m3 of concrete, while reducing carbon emissions by up to 75%) on the precast blocks that will form the harbour’s wall.

With major new projects few and far between FBA was forced to place a highly competitive bid before supplying the project, he says “The project is costing us in terms of the equipment, the manpower and, of course, I need to get the profit and income.

However when you think about the media coverage, then it is a good thing for us.”

Despite the crawl in Qatar’s progress, he says that the company is already seeing a

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SPECIAL FEATURE PREFABRICATED SOLUTIONS

bigprojectME.com

An eye on

pods

Fast to install and ready to go – why aren’t prefabricated pods being used in higher volumes in the region?

W

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MIDDLE EAST

ith a satisfying ‘clunk, click’ light bounces around the bathroom, reflecting on the tiles and off the edge of neatly polished taps.

If they were properly connected to the mains, there would be water flowing out of the nozzles into the clean-looking basin. It looks like a standard bathroom that could be in any number of hotels in Jumeirah, West Bay or on Saudi’s Red Sea coast. Only when you open the bathroom door, do you get the surreal sensation of looking out onto a noisy factory floor.

It may be where it has been built but the fully assembled ‘pod’ deserves to be set in a hotel suite and not in Ras Al Khaimah.

Pods – prefabricated, modular spatial entities – are designed to service a building with a range of applications such as kitchens, bathrooms, en-suites, laundries and wardrobes reducing the requirement for complex, on-site trades.

All that is required is for the on-site electricians or plumbers to connect them up and they are good to go.

They arrive by flatbed on-site, just in time, and ready to be installed. Saving valuable days in the build up of walls and the installation of fittings and utilities, pods can save on labour costs and crucially time. While they may be commonplace in western markets, they remain on the periphery of construction in the region.

“You’ve been building the same way for the last 20 years, and I come to you and say come try the pods. I will face a lot of resistance,” says Sadig Abuagla of Unipods. “They think. If I know how

DECEMBER 2012

JUST IN TIME Pods are installed on-site and ready to go.

SPECIAL FEATURE PREFABRICATED SOLUTIONS

and consultant specs. The process can be repeated and refined like a production line. With pods you’re getting the same quality over and over again without the need for complicated labour logistics in a busy construction environment.

“It fits pretty well with the precast idea in terms of building,” says production manager Jorgen Bahne Hansen. “But if you were to go to precast factory you would probably end up with the pipes and inserts in the wrong place. This way you can get much higher degree of quality. It is also a much safer way to build and quieter on site.

At the factory in RAK, Unipods is currently working on prefabricated units for temporary housing for a power plant,

“If you were to go to precast factory you would probably end up with the pipes and inserts in the wrong place. This way you can get much higher degree of quality.”

student accommodation, a project in Abu Dhabi, and is preparing to work on two hotel contracts.

He adds: “It has taken time for our people to learn what we want. But because there are so many of the same type, if you have built the mould correctly and checked it, then you know what is coming out is correct.”

The list of companies offering prefabricated pods has shrunk not grown in the past half-decade but there are some that have dug in and are still serving a healthy range of projects. One of them, TecnoIN, is currently involved in several projects in the UAE with Abu Dhabi proving particuarly busy.

According to the company, there is a continuing need for these products as in the construction of new buildings or in the renovation of older ones. Installation is always one of the most difficult stages because of the logistics and necessary synchronisation of different interventions.

For TecnoIN, the biggest virtue is time. The construction of a traditional bathroom requires masons, carpenters, electricians, painters, joiners and plumbers, with the obvious problems in the execution and organisation of the work stages and consequently a longer delivery time. n

What is a 'pod'?

A ‘Pod’ is a prefabricated, modular spatial entity designed to service a building with a range of applications such as kitchens, bathrooms, ensuites, laundries and wardrobes reducing the requirement for complex, on-site trades.

The pod is a factory-finished permanent formwork system of reinforced concrete, strong enough to be transported to regional and remote areas without damage to the completely finished internal fixtures and finishes.

Pods can be fully customised and are available in any size, configuration or architectural finish. The walls provide structural support and can be stacked for multi-level applications such as units and apartments.

Pods are manufactured in a quality controlled and efficient environment, with all of the tradework finished including fixtures and fittings. Pods are ideal for kitchens, bathrooms, laundries, accommodation and various other building applications.

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MIDDLE EAST

this way works, why would I try another way? There is still some scepticism but the feedback I’m getting is that people are starting to realise about pods. It’s beginning to pick up.”

With high unit construction projects such as villa and educational residential developments receiving high investment across the region, it would be sensible for contractors and developers to consider the technology.

Similar to precast methods, pods are made out of moulds with space left for inserts such as plumbing. Once the concrete is set, the units are then bolted together from the floor upwards in a standard timber and metal shell. Fixtures and fittings can be installed to contractor

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SUPPLIER NEWS

bigprojectME.com

SUPPLIER NEWS A world of access?

Dorma to open first Middle East showroom Dorma will open its first showroom in the Middle East in Dubai in Januray. DORMA’s 280 sqm “World of Access“ interior showroom has been designed by BECC Germany and will provide display space to architects and corporate vendors.

Dorma claims it is the first company to introduce this type of novel showroom in the region – the first having opened in New York.

Speaking on the brand’s concept taking shape, Ben Shaw, regional director Dorma Gulf said the company is looking forward to providing customers and stakeholders “with an experience like no other”.

“Through this showroom, architects, contractors and customers will not onlyget to see the products come to life but experience an entirely different side of Dorma products,” he said.

The ‘World of Access’ showroom is designed to create an environment that blends distinctive elements with strong visual continuity and impeccable detailing for all interior needs into three key ‘experiences’. The interior, office and public experiences come with custom made fittings and technology that help evolve the area according to specific requirements thus giving a wholesome experience.

Ben further added: “Dubai is a melting point of cultures and a trendsetter in the region when it comes to firsts; showcasing our products here will help facilitate stronger customer interaction and promote our bespoke product offerings.”

Mapei reaches 75 Twin anniversary celebration for adhesive specialist Mapei, the global manufacturer of adhesives, sealants and chemical products for buildings, showcased its latest range of adhesives and provided visitors during the Big 5 International Building & Construction Show 2012. Another major highlight of Mapei’s eighth consecutive year of participation at the event was the company’s celebration of its 75th founding anniversary and the fifth year since opening its UAE office.

The products officially unveiled for the Middle East during the exhibition were

Mapefix EP, a chemical anchor for structural loads; Mapefix PE SF, a chemical anchor for light loads; and Mapefix VE SF, chemical anchor used for heavier loads.

“The new product line provides adhesive solutions for anchoring heavy loads, structural loads and light loads.

The Mapefix EP, Mapefix PE SF and Mapefix VE SF have been certified according to ETA European Standards.”

Mapei also organised two seminars, ‘Low VOC building adhesive materials

for LEED compliance and safer working environment’ and ‘Understanding ISO 13007 and how it can help avoid tiling and stone installation issues’ in November this year.

A ‘try-it-yourself’ campaign was also organised during Big 5 wherein guests could sample the features of Mapei products, including the fast-drying liquid elastic membrane for waterproofing indoors; solventfree, non flammable vinyl/ PVC adhesive dispersed in water; and ready-to-use solvent-free polyurethane elastic.

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Tel: +966 3 802 4938 Fax: +966 3 826 9894 www.ahqsons.com info@ahqsons.com

DECEMBER 2012

A special coating Hempel paints a new picture at Big 5 event.

Hempel, one of the world’s largest, independent suppliers of decorative, marine and protective coatings, has recently concluded an exclusive showcase of its latest offerings, including its industryleading, environment-friendly products, during its participation at Big 5.

Hempel products that were presented at the show included Topaz, the decorative internal range of paints that has very low VOC content for its waterbased version; the Contex Thermoguard, an exterior coating with high solar reflectivity that effectively reduces energy for cooling of buildings thus reducing electrical consumption and carbon foot print; Hempasil x3, the leading fouling release solution with proven track record of cost savings; and the recently launched high-solids antifouling coatings range. In addition to the new range of tank linings that can resist elevated temperatures.

“The positive feedback we have received at The Big 5 clearly demonstrates the great value that Hempel’s products and services deliver to our customers,” said Laurence Brown, Hempel UAE country manager.

He added: “Hempel’s aggressive investments in R&D have been crucial in our continuing success to satisfy the evolving needs of our customers, particularly here in the Middle East. Moreover, we have introduced new eco-friendly solutions that complement the growing focus on sustainable growth and development within the business community and the society in general.”

Hempel, which holds a significant market share in the GCC, takes advantage of its extensive network of manufacturing units and sales offices to supply a wide range of paint solutions for various projects in the oil & gas and shipping sectors, as well as decorative paints for villas, apartments, hotels, hospitals, and infrastructure projects.

Hempel was founded in 1915 and is approaching 100 years of being a leading global supplier of coatings and has been operating in the Middle East for more than 30 years.

SUPPLIER NEWS

Looking for accesS Hörmann focusing on residential projects

Variable designs Armstrong’s new range of efficient variable speed pumps Armstrong claims its new range of energy efficient variable speed pumps offer outstanding energy efficient performance across a wider operating envelope than ever before. Designed with a builtin safety net, the company claims they eradicate the need to trade-off the energy efficiency of the installation through over-sizing equipment – “to be on the safe side”.

Incorporating Armstrong’s award-winning on-board inverter control feature, they adjust quickly to changes in load to optimise energy efficiency of the system automatically, across a wider range of operational conditions than any other available pump range.

Armstrong Design Envelope Intelligent Variable Speed (IVS) pumps are a complete solution for heating and cooling systems. The integration of a perfectly matched Vertical In-Line pump, motor, and Intelligent Variable Speed controller creates an innovative, high-value pumping solution.

In common with Armstrong’s existing IVS and IVS pump ranges, the new pumps reduce pumping costs through variable speed, demand-based operation — consuming only the energy required, based on current system demand. The variable speed intelligence embedded in the controller enables the pump to respond instantaneously and automatically to system load, adjusting the speed of the pump and drawing only the power required to meet that load.

A major benefit of the new Design Envelope IVS pump is that it can provide the same optimised energy efficiency capabilities over a wider operational range than other pumps, says Armstrong.

A single pump model can scontinue to operate even if requirements change, either during the design process or after installation, without the risk of underperformance or the need for replacement.

Armstrong argues that changes to spec are common during the design phase of a project, involving consultants and other engineers in costly re-designs. The wider scope of requirements covered by a Design Envelope IVS pump model however can reduce iterations of pump selection, reducing levels of risk and safeguarding profit margins across the supply chain. In addition, after installation, the Design Envelope IVS pumps can accommodate common changes in requirements resulting from changes in occupancy, alterations of building design, or modifications in the shade conditions due to changes in the building’s surroundings, such as the construction of new buildings adjacent to the existing site. For building owners this can bring greater adaptability without costly HVAC refurbishment, at the same time as ensuring continued optimisation of pump efficiency.

The performance envelopes are mapped to enable the most efficient pumps to be selected for 50% of the design flow rate, where variable flow systems operate most often.

This helps a building’s hydronic pumping system consume as little energy as possible. In addition to ensuring that the installation is compliant with 2017 legislation on pump motor efficiency, the in-built intelligence delivers energy savings of up to 70%, reducing carbon impact in excess of current legal requirements, and reducing costs, to deliver even greater benefit to building occupiers and owners.

In addition to these features, the Design Envelope IVS pump range also offers valuable installation savings. Equipped with Armstrong’s Sensorless design feature, the pumps do not require an external sensor to monitor and control the HVAC load, removing the additional cost and technical complexity of installing Variable Frequency Drives.

Tel: +966 3 802 4938 Fax: +966 3 826 9894 www.ahqsons.com info@ahqsons.com

DECEMBER 2012

MIDDLE EAST

Hörmann Middle East used one of the largest stands at Big 5 this year to demonstrate its range of products promising enhanced security and energy efficiency. The company displayed the latest technology and designs in garage doors, entrance doors, internal doors, fire doors and smoke-tight door assemblies, industrial doors, loading technology, frames and windows.

According to Darius Khanloo, managing director of Hörmann Middle East: “We were excited to participate at Big 5 for the third consecutive year.”

“We showcased many of our latest products at the show, especially new custom made solutions for logistics companies and food and dairy companies,” he added. “Ever since we established a direct presence in the region in 2009, we have experienced a steady year on year growth. We now have a flagship showroom in Jebel Ali Free Zone, a fully functional assembly plant and a warehouse in Dubai Investment Park. All Hörmann fire-rated steel doors are approved by the UAE Civil Defense and we are also in the process of obtaining approvals from Civil Defenses in Qatar and Oman.

“We are aiming to expand our operations with a new branch office in Qatar. Recently, we have completed significant projects for Al Merkaaz, Ceva, Khalifa Port, Al Marai.

Though we have seen more demand from industrial and commercial sectors, we also have a strong focus on the residential market.

We provide an array of options to match the architecture of any home.”

Some of the safety features that visitors could see at its Big 5 stand included Finger Trap Protection, photocells that immediately detect people and objects and provides additional level of safety, BiSecur handheld transmitters with FM signals for opening automatic doors and gates, and lockable bottom profile. Other products included wicket doors with trip-free thresholds which decrease the risk that persons passing through will trip and injure themselves.

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TENDERS

bigprojectME.com

MIDDLE EAST TENDERS Provided by

Tel +9712-6348495 Web www.MiddleEastTenders.com Email sales@MiddleEastTenders.com

Iraq Marriott Hotel & Executive Apartments Project

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Project Number ZPR867-IQ Territory Iraq Client Name Empire World (Iraq) Address Airport Road City Erbil Country Iraq Phone (+964-66) 250 4192 Email info@empireiraq.com Website http://www.empireiraq. com Description Construction of fivestar Marriott Hotel & Executive Apartments comprising (200) rooms and (75 Nos.) deluxe apartments.

Period 2014 Status New Tender Remarks This project will be located at Erbil in Kurdistan region of Iraq. Dubai-based Limah Design Consultants has been awarded the contract to develop a comprehensive way-finding and signage system. Limah will be focusing on developing a complete plan, including signage for the exterior and interior of the properties, as well as the car parks. The scope also includes signage for the restaurants, as well as additional regulatory signage required by the International Building Code. To compliment the design, Limah will use warm, natural materials mixed with the latest in LED lighting technologies.

The hotel and apartments are expected to open in 2014.

Design Consultant Limah Design

DECEMBER 2012

Consultants (Dubai) Tender Categories Construction & Contracting, Hotels Tender Products Hotel Construction

Central Processing Facility Project - Halfaya Oil Field Project Number MPP2706-IQ Territory Iraq Client Name PetroChina Company Ltd. (China) Address 9 Dongzhimen North Street, Dongcheng District City Beijing 100007 Country China Phone (+86-10) 5998 6037 Fax (+86-10) 6209 9558 Email wangling@petrochina. com.cn Website http://www.petrochina. com.cn Description Construction of a new central processing facility (CPF), including a power plant and pumping station at an oil field.

Closing Date December 9, 2012 Status New Tender Remarks This project is at Halfaya oil field in southeast of Iraq. It is the second CPF to be built at the field with two production units, each with a capacity of 50,000 barrels a day. Client has invited contractors to submit bids for the main contract, which covers the new processing facility as well as an operations and maintenance (O&M) deal.

Tender Categories Gas Processing & Distribution, Oilfields & Refineries, Power & Alternative Energy

Tender Products Gas Processing & Separation, Oilfields Exploration & Development, Power Generation Plants

UAE Bank Headquarters Project - Al Maryah Island Project Number NPR017-U Territory Abu Dhabi Client Name National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) Address Intersection of Sheikh Khalifa Street & Baniyas Street City Abu Dhabi Postal/Zip Code 2993 Country UAE Phone (+971-2) 611 1111 Fax (+971-2) 627 5738 Website http://www.nbad.com Description Construction of 31-storey building forming the headquarters of a bank.

Status New Tender Remarks This project involves construction of a new global head office for National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) in the heart of Abu Dhabi’s new Central Business District on Al Maryah Island.

The new building will cover an area of 67,300 square metres and located on a key site within the Al Maryah Master Plan facing both the waterfront and a main access road.

The building accommodates commercial office space, while incorporating multiple functions, including hub bank, tower lobbies, trading floors, auditoriums, conferencing centre and a

cafeteria.

Prominent global architecture and design firm, Gensler, has been appointed to design this new building. Gensler will provide full design and supervision consultancy services, including architecture, interior design, landscape design, engineering and site supervision services.

Design Consultant Gensler Associates (Abu Dhabi) Tender Categories Prestige Buildings Tender Products High-rise Towers

Project Name Outlet Village Project Number NPR014-U Project Territory Dubai Client Name Meraas Development (Dubai) City Dubai Country UAE Phone (+971-4) 511 4900 Fax (+971-4) 332 2707 Website http://www.meraas. ae Description Construction of Outlet Village comprising retail high-end luxury brands and stores.

Status New Tender Remarks This project will be located at the intersection of Al Khail Road and Umm Suqeim Road in Dubai.

Covering an area of 20,000 square metres, Outlet Village will retail high-end luxury brands at discounted prices. Construction work is scheduled to commence in 2013, with the large-format

TENDERS

Al Hilal Bank Headquarters Project Project Number MPP2557-U Territory Abu Dhabi Client Name Al Hilal Bank (Abu Dhabi) Address Al Falah Street City Abu Dhabi Postal/Zip Code 63111 Country UAE Phone (+971-2) 657 4529 / 657 4530 Fax (+971-2) 441 2338 Email maldosari@alhilalbank.ae Website http://www.alhilalbank. ae Description Construction of new headquarters for Al-Hilal Bank comprising a 24-storey, 120-metretall building.

Budget $82,000,000 Period 2013 Status Current Project Remarks This project will be located on Al Maryah Island, formerly Sowwah Island, which is being developed as a new financial centre in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, and cover an area of 4,850 square metres.

The building will be constructed next to Cleveland Clinic and Sowwah Square projects that are being developed by the island’s master developer Mubadala Development Company.

Local Al-Faraa General Contracting Company has been awarded the main contract on this scheme. It is understood that work is in progress

on this scheme and expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The tower includes 49,110 square metre of office and retail space with 1,000 parking spaces. The podium contains a retail banking facility as well as three-storey transparent lobby to the north, with pedestrian arcades on the east and west.

Three cubical masses sit atop the podium. Façade consists of an aluminium-and-glass curtain wall system with glass and notched metal-spandrel elements and vertical glass fins that enhance the buildings vertically while also providing shading.

The project is designed and scheduled to receive an Estidama 1 Pearl rating.

Main Consultant Goettsch Partners Inc. (USA) Main Contractor Al Faraa General Contracting Company (Abu Dhabi) Tender Categories Prestige Buildings Tender Products High-rise Towers

Alumina Refinery Project Project Number MPP2649-U Territory Abu Dhabi Client Name Mubadala Development Company - MDC (Abu Dhabi) Address Al Muroor Road City Abu Dhabi Postal/Zip Code 45005 Country United Arab Emirates Phone (+971-2) 413 0000 Fax (+971-2) 413 0001 Website http://www.mubadala. ae Description Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract to build an alumina refinery with capacity of at least 1.5 million tonnes a year (t/y).

Budget $1,500,000,000 Status New Tender Remarks This project will be built next to the Emirates Aluminium

(Emal) Smelter at Taweelah in Abu Dhabi and will be the first upstream aluminium plant of its type to be built in the UAE. Canada’s Hatch and SNC Lavalin have been appointed to carry out feasibility studies on this scheme.

The two engineering firms will carry out separate studies for the project, with Hatch looking at the core technology and SNC Lavalin responsible for other proponents such as utilities and offsites.

Separate studies will be conducted over the coming months and when the studies are completed a decision regarding the scheme will be made.

Specialist Consultant Hatch (Abu Dhabi) Specialist Consultant 2 SNCLavalin International Inc. (Abu Dhabi) Tender Categories Industrial & Special Projects Tender Products Aluminium Smelters/Plants

Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Project – Nad Al-Sheba Project Number MPP2698-U Territory Dubai Client Name Meydan L.L.C (Dubai) Address Meydan Racecourse, Al Meydan Road, Nad Al Sheba City Dubai Postal/Zip Code 9305 Country United Arab Emirates Phone (+971-4) 327 0000 Fax (+971-4) 327 0007 Website http://www.meydan. ae Description Development of Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid scheme, including apartment buildings, villas, office blocks, a boutique hotel and a shopping mall.

Status New Tender Remarks This project will be built on 5 square kilometres of land between client’s racecourse

grandstand and Al-Khail Road in Dubai.

The long-term scheme also includes public areas and gardens with areas for tennis, squash and paintballing, horse riding trail, running track, cycle path and 7 kilometres of canals.

US-based Ae7 is the architect for the scheme.

Main Architect Ae7 (Dubai) Tender Categories Construction & Contracting, Hotels, Leisure & Entertainment Tender Products Commercial Buildings, Gardens/Parks Development & Maintenance, Hotel Construction, Residential Buildings, Retail Developments

Qatar Mondrian Doha Hotel Project Project Number OPR557-Q Territory Qatar Client Name Al Hamla Holding (Qatar) City Doha Country Qatar Description Construction of Mondrian Doha Hotel comprising two basements, a ground floor, a podium and (25) upper floors.

Status Current Project Remarks This hotel will be located in Lusail area of Qatar. Local SEG Qatar has been appointed as the main contractor. Construction is already underway.

Almost six floors have been completed. Local South West Architecture is acting as the design and supervision consultant.

The hotel will be operated by Morgans Hotel Group.

Main Consultant South West Architecture (Qatar) Design Consultant South West Architecture (Qatar) Main Contractor Societe d Enterprise & de Gestion - SEG W.L.L (Qatar) Aluminium Products Supplier

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MIDDLE EAST

destination set to host a total of 160 top-tier outlet stores.

Phase 1 of the development will feature (100) high-end brands, while Phase 2 will consist of (60) additional outlet stores. The concept of this scheme takes inspiration from a European Village.

Tender Categories Construction & Contracting, Leisure & Entertainment Tender Products Retail Developments

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TENDERS

Alumco Qatar WLL (Qatar) Steel Products Supplier Blue Steel Factory W.L.L (Qatar) Foundations, Enabling & Piling Contractor Navayuga Engineering Company W.L.L (Qatar) Tender Categories Hotels, Prestige Buildings Tender Products High-rise Towers, Hotel Construction

Bahrain JW Marriott Hotel Construction Project Bahrain Bay Waterfront Development

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Project Number MPP2597-B Territory Bahrain Client Name Remza Investment Company (Bahrain) Address B63 Al-Qadisiya Avenue City Manama Postal/Zip Code 684 Country Bahrain Phone (+973) 1782 2122 Email info@remza.com Description Construction of 50-storey JW Marriott Hotel on a waterfront development.

Period 2016 Status New Tender Remarks This project will be located in Bahrain Bay Waterfront Development. It is being implemented by local Khaleej Capital a joint venture of Qatarbased Business Trading Company and the local Remza Investment Company.

The scheme will consist of a 50-storey tower on top of a 5-storey podium, with three floors of underground parking. The development will cover a total area of 97,000 square metres. East side of the tower will contain 276 hotel rooms and related facilities and the west side will contain 96 serviced apartments.

Five-storey podium will contain the

DECEMBER 2012

bigprojectME.com

banquet hall and meeting facilities, lobbies and common areas, in addition to 200 car parking spaces.

The underground car park will contain 220 car parking spaces.

Contractors have been invited to pre-qualify for the main contract on this scheme. Local YDA & Associates is acting as the design consultant.

Dubai branch of Los Angeles-based design studio Creative Resource Associates (CRA) has signed an agreement with Khaleej Capital to design the interiors of the hotel.

Design Consultant Yousif Dawood Al Sayegh Consultants (Bahrain) Interior Design Consultant Creative Resource Associates (CRA) – Dubai Tender Categories Hotels, Construction & Contracting, Leisure & Entertainment, Prestige Buildings Tender Products High-rise Towers, Hotel Construction

Jordan Tri-Fuel Power Plant Project Project Number MPR1409-J Territory Amman Client Name Amman Asia Electric Power (Jordan) Country Jordan Description Construction of a trifuel power plant with capacity of 573MW. Budget $600,000,000 Period 30/09/2014 Status Current Project Remarks This project will be located in Al-Manakher, about 30 kilometres outside Amman in Jordan. The plant will utilise natural gas, heavy fuel oil and light fuel oil as its main fuels.

It will be powered using 38 Wartsila 50DF multi-fuel engines and will be fitted with a nitrogen oxide control system to reduce

emissions.

A consortium of Finland’s Wartsila Corporation and South Korea’s Lotte Engineering & Construction has been awarded an estimated $552m main contract on this scheme.

Completed power facility will be delivered in three phases.

First phase is scheduled to be in commercial operation in February 2014, with complete operation planned in September 2014.

Main Contractor Wartsila Corporation (Finland) Main Contractor(2) Lotte Engineering & Construction (Korea) Tender Categories Power & Alternative Energy Tender Products Power Generation Plants

Kuwait Main Gathering Centre Upgrade Project - Wafra Field Project Number MPP2710-K Territory Kuwait Client Name Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC) Address Arabian Oil Company Building, Block 10, Avenue 7 City Al Ahmadi 61008 Postal/Zip Code 9758 Country Kuwait Phone (+965) 398 4406/ 398 4415/ 398 4416 Fax (+965) 398 4281/ 398 4282 Description Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to upgrade main gathering centre at Wafra Field.

Budget $200,000,000 Period 2015 Status New Tender Remarks This project will be located in the divided zone between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The field is operated by Wafra Joint Operations (WJO), which is a joint venture of client and

Saudi Arabia’s Chevron, both subsidiaries of their respective state oil companies Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Saudi Aramco.

Technical bids have been submitted for the EPC contract on this scheme. Bidders include: Italy’s Saipem; UK’s Petrofac; Japan’s JGC; South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction and Samsung Engineering.

Winning firm will upgrade the gathering centre by the end of 2015.

Tender Categories Oilfields & Refineries Tender Products Oilfields Exploration & Development

Northern Oil Distribution Network Project Project Number MPP2545-K Territory Kuwait Client Name Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) City Ahmadi 61008 Postal/Zip Code 9758 Country Kuwait Phone (+965) 2398 9111 Fax (+965) 2398 3661 Email kocinfo@kockw.com Website http://www.kockw. com Description Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to develop a distribution network for electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) at the northern oil fields.

Budget $600,000,000 Period 2015 Status Current Project Remarks It is understood that Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has approved an estimated $208-million EPC contract to Petrofac on this scheme.

Main Contractor Petrofac Limited (Kuwait) Tender Categories Oilfields & Refineries Tender Products Oilfields Exploration & Development

WITH AROUND SEVEN MILLION WINDOWS CLEANED ANNUALLY FOR ABOUT 220 CLIENTS, DELIVERED AT THE HIGHEST INDUSTRY SAFETY STANDARDS…

We take Cleaning to

“Unmatched Heights”

DECEMBER DIARY

MENA 2012 ELECTRICX POWER - Middle East and Africa Power & Energy Cairo International Conference Center, Cairo, Egypt 1-4 December 2012 ELECTRICX POWER is a leading Egypt, Africa & Middle East event, held yearly at the Cairo International Convention Center in Egypt. The aim of this event is to promote the network of experts, industry leaders and distributors in the power-energy sectors.

The event has hosted 18,913 visitors from 39 countries with a growth expectation for 2012 as powerenergy investments continue to focus on energy sustainability for Egypt, Middle East & North Africa.

Big Project Awards 2012 – Construction and Sustainability Awards of Excellence Dubai Armani Hotel Dubai, Burj Khalifa 4 December The Big Project Awards are the industry’s premier recognition of the best and brightest in the regional construction and sustainability industries. The awards not only recognise companies in the GCC, but also the individuals who are helping to shape the market in which we operate.

The Burj Khalifa’s Armani Ballroom venue encapsulates the ideals of imagination, innovation and sustainability, the Big Project Awards will see companies from around the GCC feted by their peers.

HAPPENING THIS MONTH...

Cityscape Riyadh Riyadh Exhibition Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 9-11 December The three-day high exhibition serves to provide a business environment for real estate professionals to do business, engage in discussion and establish new partnerships. With the new mortgage law expected to boost the mortgage market, Cityscape Riyadh is taking place at the opportune time and will provide the participants an ideal platform to network face-to-face, discuss issues of joint interest and create joint venture partnerships.

International International ICCX Russia Park Inn Pulkovskaya, St. Petersburg, Russia 4-7 December ICCX Russia is in its eighth year.

It will be held at the Park Inn Pulkovskay Hotel in St. Petersburg again. St. Petersburg is the shining star of Russian architecture and urban planning. Exhibitors and attendees have made ICCX Russia the most important concrete conference held in all of Russia.

Our mission is the creation and support of a platform to impart knowledge about technology to and share important information with all members of the concrete production communities.

Contractworld Deutsch Messe, Hannover, Germany 12-15 January 2013 Contract world expo offers new perspectives to the participating companies for an improved communication with architects and interior designers. Several companies used this forum at contract world and reported about excellent and interesting contacts. It is a necessity for everybody who will operate profitable in the contract furnishing sector. Professionals related to the field of Architecture, Interior Design, buyers and specifiers including construction companies, engineers, developers, contractors, wholesalers and retailers.

17-19 February 2013 Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre United Arab Emirates Under the patronage of H. H. Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Deputy Ruler

Doing Global Business a Power of Good The premier international showcase for the power, lighting, nuclear and renewable sectors.

Be a part of the world’s leading energy event. Meet over 1000 suppliers from 56 countries and discover the new technologies shaping the future of the energy industry.

Register today for FREE fast-track entry at

www.middleeastelectricity.com Co-located with:

Partner Events:

Organised by:

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

bigprojectME.com GAVIN DAVIDS

Lessons from the Past The expansion of the Masjid an Nabawi in Medina will lead to the destruction of three of the oldest mosques in Islamic history. Gavin Davids wonders about the ramifications of such a decision

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“A nation without a past is a nation without a present or a future. Thanks to God, our nation has a flourishing civilisation, deep-rooted in this land for many centuries. These roots will always flourish and bloom in the glorious present of our nation and in its anticipated future.”

These were the words spoken by HH Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the late President of the UAE and the founder of the nation.

Although he was speaking about his own country, those words could just have as easily been applied to the rest of the GCC. Especially when one considers a country like Saudi Arabia, which has a rich tapestry of history and culture that has fuelled its growth into a leader on the Arab stage. Unfortunately, this history is at risk from the forces of progress and development, with disturbing reports emerging from the Holy City of Medina, regarding the local government’s plans to expand the Masjid-an-Nabawi into the world’s largest building.

Once the expansion is complete, the mosque will have a capacity of more than one million worshippers. Work on the project, which is considered Islam’s second-holiest site, was scheduled to begin following the completion of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

While the need for expansion cannot be questioned, the unfortunate reality is

DECEMBER 2012

that Saudi Arabia stands to lose a priceless segment of its history and culture, if the plans are carried out as they are.

This is because the expansion of the Masjid will destroy three historic mosques near the current structure, a tragic development since these mosques have been in existence since the seventh century and represent crucial links to the Kingdom’s past. Criticism against the decision has been strident, with Islamic experts both in the Kingdom and around the world uniting to protest against the decision to bulldoze the mosques, which are dedicated to Abu Bakr and Umar, two of the prophet’s closest companions.

“No one denies that Medina is in need of expansion, but it’s the way the authorities are going about it that it which is so worrying,” says Dr Irfan al Alawi of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, in a report published by The Independent.

Most of the expansion of the Masjid an Nabawi will take place to the west of the existing mosque.

Located just outside the western walls of the current structure are the two mosques, as well as the Masjid Ghamama, a mosque built to commemorate the sport where the Prophet is thought to have given his first prayers for the festival of Eid. “There are ways they could expand which would either avoid or preserve the ancient Islamic sites, but instead they

want to knock it all down,” Dr Alawi adds.

Having spent the last decade highlighting the destruction of early Islamic sites, Dr Alawi says that Saudi Arabia has not announced any plans to preserve or move the three mosques, which have existed since the seventh century and are covered by Ottoman-era structures.

He adds that the government has not even commissioned archaeological digs before the mosques are pulled down, which has caused considerable alarm amongst academics in the Kingdom.

This attitude is probably the most dissapointing part of the whole sorry story, as it appears the government in Saudi Arabia may have little or no regard for their history, and that is a tragic thing.

No matter the pace or scope of development taking place, a country should always strive to embrace, or at the very least, acknowledge its history. No truly great civilisation has grown without an understanding of where it has come from.

As things stand, the stance of the Saudi Arabian government towards these mosques remains the same, and it is unlikely to change. We can only hope that lessons are learnt from the loss and that the rest of the GCC does not follow suit.

As a wise man once said: “He who does not know his past cannot make the best of his present and future, for it is from the past that we learn.” n

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Client Al-Futtaim Group Architect Cox Crone Architects Construction 2003 – 2007 Application of FOAMGLAS® behind stone cladding facade 8000 m2

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