The company, which already has operations across the GCC and Asia, has earned the rare distinction of being certified and approved by three national oil companies in the region, now plans to open a full-fledged facility in Kuwait

Saudi-based industrial services leader Anabeeb is expanding its footprint in the region and also diversifying vertically as it maintains its position as an end-to-end solution for all shutdown and maintenance works connected with the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors.

'By diversifying vertically, we are looking at opportunities to utilise our know-how, experience, and wonderful capability. We are very fortunate to have an excellent capability in-house and are looking at utilising that kind of capability in other industries such as renewable energy, solar energy and the mining sector, which are coming up briskly in the region,' says Anabeeb CEO, Fahad Al Mutlaq.

Anabeeb, which already has operations across the GCC and Asia, has earned the rare distinction of being certified and approved by three national oil companies in the region, plans to open a full-fledged facility in Kuwait, which should be operational by the end of the year.

'Kuwait as a country is one of those areas that we would like to see more presence for Anabeeb. We would like to gain the full trust and confidence of KNPC, our main client there. I think we aspire to reach Kuwait in a better capability and with an enhanced project execution plan. We want to win more projects in Kuwait, execute more projects, and expand our footprint in the country,' he says. Besides KNPC, Anabeeb is executing major turnaround and shutdowns for Equate and PIC in Kuwait.

'Although there is stiff competition, Kuwait is a robust market and has huge potential. The GCC market, in general, is recovering from the oil price shock of 2016. For sure the market is going up, and there is a lot of investment in the downstream and the transformational industrial aspect.

'GCC governments are looking at enhancing the value chain of the petroleum industry. So the crude oil price fluctuation needs to be compensated by the value-added product that comes from crude oil. I think most of the countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and UAE are looking at the value-added aspect of the downstream side,' he says.

Kuwait is a core competence market for Anabeeb where it performs shutdown and turnaround services besides mechanical repair and rotary repair as well. All equipment maintenance within the reach of our hands. 'It’s our comfort zone to work in Kuwait,' he observes. Al Mutlaq notes that the market is recovering and more projects are coming. Even then there will be uncertainty from time to time. This uncertainty drives cost challenges, whenever there is cost challenge, there is competitiveness in the market.

Anabeeb in action

Referring to the competition in the market, he says: 'The real challenge is not to be competitive, but to gain and maintain your client’s trust. Yes, being competitive is important, but the real challenge is to gain trust and maintain it.

On the technical side, Anabeeb is partnering with international companies all over the world. The company has a massive investment in innovation and technology. It has robotic capabilities to clean and tackle industrial challenges and it has fully automatic machines, laser-guided that can do the job with minimum human interference to enhance the health and safety ratio.

Anabeeb is considered to be one of the safest working environments. 'We reached 20 million safe man-hours with zero LTI last month,' Al Mutlaq says.

'We are trying to update the company from inside, so we are adopting the best practice in the market, which is from a policy and procedure point of view. Our new structure in place will definitely enable us to execute our jobs and tackle the requirement of our client in a much faster and a much smarter way,' he says.

Asked what made the company unique, he says the answer to that question is simple: 'Because we care, we take responsibility, we take our projects seriously.

Loss of production during maintenance time is a huge loss for the client. When we go to tackle projects, we also try to look at the issue from the client’s perspective. And when you have that kind of vigil and DNA in the company, it works out to be a successful model. It’s not the funds we are after; it’s the value we create, that’s what makes us different,' he explains.

Al Mutlaq says that Anabeeb is known for tackling emergency callouts and has a response time of 2-3 hours within 80 to 100 km radius.

The company has a very experienced team to do scaffolding. It employs a modernised system, which is the best in the world called Layher Allround Scaffolding, which is approved by Aramco.

Mohit Kumar, commercial director of Anabeeb, says the company provides more than 50 services items to the oil & gas and petrochemicals industry, making it the biggest and best contractor available in the Middle East, providing end-to-end Industrial Maintenance Services solutions.

The company does all static equipment maintenance especially for the exchanger, column, vessels, furnaces, valves, strainers, and the like. 'Shutdown and day to day maintenance is the company’s core competency,' he says.

'We are Aramco certified and qualified for retubing of exchangers and have ‘U’ and ‘R’ stamp certified workshop. We have split our core business into six items, i.e. maintenance, pre-commissioning, specialised services, catalyst services, manufacturing and brown field projects. We have a staff of 2,600+ people permanently stationed in Saudi Arabia.' But during the peak season, the company’s requirement goes up to 4,500 to 5,500-plus people whom it sources from overseas.

The forthcoming opportunities for Anabeeb in Kuwait are the pre-commissioning of KNPC and then the shutdowns of KNPC as well as of Equate and PIC.

Anabeeb recently, completed the major turnaround projects of Satorp, Samref, Chevron, Yanpet, Luberef and Ibn-Zahr.

'To improve our quality of service and enhance our in-house capabilities in order to provide the engineering industrial services, we form global technical alliances with companies that complement our core service/product offerings,' he adds.