AES Arabia, a water and waste water solutions providers checks in with Oil&Gas Middle East on how it is expanding its regional activity.
AES Arabia is one of the region’s only water and waste water solution providers. The company provides solutions which start at the conceptual study, design, manufacturing, installation, and go through the commissioning, operation and maintenance stages.
Asad Iqbal Khan, AES Business Development Manager, explains how the company has expanded its global reach from its head office in Tampa and direct or indirect representation in the Caribbean. “We directly operate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia out of our Riyadh headquarter and several capable branch offices such as Al Khobar and Jeddah,” he says.
“There is no point of emphasizing but it is quite obvious that we have been doing very well with a good pace of growth in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia however the point of emphasis is that we have been in a comfortable growth in countries such as Algeria, Iraq.”
Khan explains that although contracts for approximately 30% of the projects have already been awarded, he expects that total Oil & Gas EPC awards in the MENA region for the year 2013 will be around $39,000M. “We are not seeing any retardation on the energy projects and we haven’t experienced any project in the conceptual stage which hasn’t flown,” he adds.
When asked what the core attributes an EPC contractor should look for when selecting partners and subcontractors on big Oil and Gas projects, Khan explained that, “the EPC contractors shouldn’t always look into the commercial aspect which is an ongoing trend resulting in the delays in the start up. We shouldn’t ignore the experience aspect in the same domain and projects.”
He believes that if a vendor only has very few references in the energy sector the EPC contractors should avoid those vendors even if they are commercially very competitive. The negligence in compliance will cost the EPC contractors far more than their saving during releasing the purchase order.
But AES has not been without challenges, “we were enjoying a semi niche market status working in Oil and Gas sectors however there are companies getting entry and exit every year and trying to destabilize the market,” explains Khan.
“It doesn’t threaten us but of course there is a temporary challenge because of the competitor’s unawareness of the compliances and specifications.”
