US processing automation and measurement services provider Emerson Process Management, opened its new US$3 million Middle East Flow Service Center in Abu Dhabi. The new centre is said to be the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa region to provide internationally-certified calibration services for flow equipment.
Emerson expects that this new facility, will help its customers in the region benefit from minimal process downtime and substantially reduced costs.
Until now Emerson’s Middle Eastern and African customers faced limited options and high operational hurdles to validate flow device calibrations or provide required third party documentation associated with ISO9000 Quality or regulatory requirements.
This resulted in costly process shutdowns and delays while flowmeters were physically removed from operation and shipped overseas for calibration, service or performance diagnostics.
The move is the latest by Emerson to increase its footprint in the region’s lucrative oil & gas and utilities market. In early January Emerson and Saudi FAL, an industrial enterprise based in Saudi Arabia, launched a new manufacturing facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia.
The company established its MENA region headquarters in Dubai in 2009, from where it manufactures much of its process automation and measurement units, supplying the region and beyond.
“The opening of Emerson’s Middle East Flow Service Center represents Emerson’s continued commitment to the region, while delivering much needed, local and certified services,” commented Dave Tredinnick, Emerson’s president of Middle East & Africa business at the grand opening of the facility.
“Never before has an internationally-certified calibration facility been available to customers, locally, to eliminate lead time issues and reduce costs for flowmeter calibration.”
Strengthening local capacity
“It’s hard to do lot of things at once as a company and certainly it’s time for us to invest heavily here,” Tredinnick admitted, responding to a question on why it had taken as long as it has for Emerson to commit to a more substantial presence in the region.
“This year we’ll add about 240 people by the end of this year in the Middle East and Africa, that will take our total population here to about 800 people. The facilities that you see are geared towards local value-addition.”
“Our goal is always to move our manufacturing, our value-added services, our people close to major customers. We have a facility that will open in Qatar in probably the third quarter of this year, it will be in Ras Laffan, we’re right in the middle of our installed based.
You’ll continue to see us invest in facilities and people close to these major pockets of industrial installed base, ” Tredinnick revealed.
Keven Dunphy, business director, Flow Division Middle East & Africa, Emerson FZE, is also optimistic about the growing significance of the facility as it will be capable of handling a wide range of flow equipment from other manufacturers in addition to Emerson’s.
“We are opening this facility for the available calibration of other devices of other manufacturers, other devices of other technologies than the ones that we manufacture so that people can use this service and use it to its full capability to address their needs,” he said.
Local resources
In addition to opening local service and manufacturing hubs in the Middle East, the company is aiming to build up its local pool of talent and resources as it aims to provide as much of a localised service to regional clients as possible.
“We bring best practices from around the world delivered here with experts here, we’re not depending on anyone to parachute in, in order to provide the expertise, we’ve got the individuals [here],” Dunphy said.
Staying true to this commitment, Emerson’s Jubail manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia is located close to Jubail Industrial College, one of the Kingdrom’s largest and most sophisticated hands-on technical institutes.
The company recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the college, under the terms of which an Emerson PlantWeb Cruiser, a process simulator, was donated as part of a four-year programme that will provide students with hands-on experience of the actual working conditions of a process plant and control room.
Additionally, Emerson will also provide technical support to the faculty on the use and maintenance of the process simulator, which Emerson expects will not only benefit the students but also provide the college with the required capability to train the industry in Jubail.
Mohammed Al Torairi is Saudi Aramco’s measurement engineer working in the Saudi oil giant’s Custody Measurement unit, which is in charge of physically measuring Aramco-produced oil and gas products transferred to customers and third parties.
“When it comes to the business that we specialise in which is custody measurement, it’s always important that we achieve the highest accuracy possible and always look in the market for the best meters that provide these desired accuracies,” he explained.
When asked about the technical challenges affecting his particular area of expertise in measurement, Al Torairi appealed for the industry’s vendors to reassess the process and methods used to calibrate flow meters.
“I call on all vendors to look at the method of meter verification because right now meter verification is recognised by the American Petroleum Institute (API) to be done mostly by a device called a ‘prover’ and this device is known to be of high initial cost and very high maintenance cost,” he said adding that there has yet to be a viable and reliable alternative available on the market.
“The prover is a higher accuracy device that calibrates or verifies the accuracy of the meter, in most cases it’s nothing but a ‘U’-shaped pipe with a rubber ball inside it. The maintenance of this device is very expensive and you cannot live without it,” al Torairi said.
