Jassim Al Mansoori, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Al-Ahed Holding
Al-Ahed Holding, one of Qatar’s leading service providers to the oil and gas industry, has announced to expand its operations and service facilities. It is part of Company’s commitment to contribute in Qatar’s long term objective to achieve self-sufficiency, economic diversification and sustainable development.
The four-decade old Qatari company recently inaugurated Qatar’s first world-class dry gas seal and testing facility in Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLIC) in partnership with John Crane, a global leader in providing rotating equipment and other solutions for oil and gas industry. It is set to expand the facility in the coming years to further enhance Qatar’s independence in terms of energy equipment services, skill development and technology transfer.
In addition to the expansion of the project Al-Ahed Holding and John Crane are also working to collaborate with some local universities to provide training services, especially to those who are majoring in mechanical engineering, at the world-class facility. This will reduce the local industries dependence on on foreign human resource.
“The second phase of the project, which is currently under study, will see the deployment of more facilities that will be enhancing our capabilities in terms of providing services to the oil and gas industry. The expansion project will be offering similar services for the mechanical seal instead of dry gas seal,” Jassim Al Mansoori, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Al-Ahed Holding, told The Peninsula.
Al Mansoori added: “In addition to students from local universities, we are also going to train some of the junior employees who are already working in the local oil and gas companies, including the Qatar Petroleum employees. These state-of-the-art facilities established by John Carne and Al-Ahed will also be used as a kind of laboratory as well as on-the-job training ground for the efficient utilization of the assets.”
He said that these service centres will also create different kinds of business opportunities and direct and indirect employment for other sectors of the economy.
Ruben Alvarez, Executive Vice-President, Sales and Aftermarket at John Crane, while speaking to this newspaper, said: “This is a very unique facility. Qatar now has the most advanced and largest size dry gas seal service centre in the world. We have brought this service, which include engineering, training, technology transfer capabilities to the country to serve all of the fleet of 100 percent dry gas seal and other critical equipment required in compressing gas.”
Alvarez added that John Crane has gone extra miles in the sense that the company is bringing training facilities and technology transfer to run this world-class facility. “We are committed to meet the growing demand of Qatari companies.”
