On June 1, 2005, Weir Services (a division of the Scottish engineering Weir Group) formed a JV with Amco, which is owned by the Olayan Group. 

Amco is a machine and fabrication shop established in 1977 with the current core business centred round oilfield related business with the significant portion of this in tubular repair and manufacture.
Weir Services, better known in the Middle East as WESCO, will be bringing its expertise of rotating machinery repairs/upgrades, re-engineering and asset management in a move designed to expand the JV's core business.
The GM heading up this new JV is John Morin who has with Weir, a long and proven track record in the oil and gas industry.
He brings to the JV his extensive experience of asset management, overhaul and upgrade of pumps and compressors, including re-engineering of spare parts.
Morin has been heavily involved in development of Weir Global Oil & Gas Services, establishing workshops in Aberdeen and other areas of the world and will be expanding the new JV into these areas of business with the construction of a rotating equipment repair shop scheduled for completion by the end of 2005.
To accommodate the significant increase in tubular and casing business, Weir Amco has purchased a new 14" CNC hollow spindle lathe at SR2m to complement the existing 9 CNC and 7 manual machines.
It is anticipated that the new machine will be commissioned before the end of September and its automatic pipe loading equipment by the end of October.
The present level of oil and gas service business in the Kingdom is placing huge demands on service companies such as Weir Amco.
It is the commitment of the new JV to invest in machine tooling and people to meet this demand and deliver a service which brings repeat business.
Currently there are in excess of 80 drilling rigs in the Kingdom with the total by the end of 2005 estimated to be around 100.
This high level of drilling activity brings extreme pressure in terms of managing urgent work to prevent rig shutdowns with these jobs arriving with little or no notice.
The level of urgent jobs arriving in Weir Amco is in the region of 25 to 30 per week.
All too often, Morin says, the efforts by staff to deliver go unnoticed by the client and it was refreshing to receive a thank you letter from Arabian Drilling recently thanking all staff for their efforts.