The firm, which was established in 2007 and has offices in Dammam, Jubail and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia and in Kuwait and UAE, is concentrating on new inspection areas such as HTHA inspection, high temperature applications and remote inspection

Saudi-based TCR Arabia, a joint venture between TCR Engineering of India and Gas Arabian Services of Saudi Arabia, is a leader in the field of material testing, inspection services, metallurgy and advisory services.

"‘Our services range is wide and covers mostly advanced testing and inspection activities. We are equipped with non-destructive testing services (advanced and conventional), mechanical testing laboratory, civil laboratory, metallurgical laboratory, microbiology laboratory, welder qualification facility, heat treatment services and inspection manpower supply," says Aref K Al-Dabal, managing director of the company.

The company, which sees good prospects ahead, says it is concentrating on new inspection areas such as HTHA inspection, high temperature applications and remote inspection techniques. Responding to demands from clients for advanced inspection technologies which reduce the downtime of plants thereby saving huge costs, TCR Arabia has invested extensively on sophisticated techniques to carry out external or remote inspections without the need to shut down the plant, he says.

"Backed by 45 years of experience of TCR Engineering, we have ventured into asset integrity study of plant equipment by providing fitness for service, life assessment, condition assessment, root cause analysis, stress analysis and other related services," he says.

TCR Arabia has been working consistently with all major clients in Saudi Arabia including Sabic, Saudi Aramco, SEC, SWCC, Marafiq, Maaden, Tasnee, Advanced, Saudi Chevron, Satorp, Sadara, PetroRabigh and Sahara.

"The trust of our valuable clients in the quality of our services resulted in major long-term contracts which we are currently executing. We have also been a part of some major and prestigious projects such as the PetroRabigh Expansion Project, Khurais Sea Water Injection Project, Safa-Marwa Expansion Project in Mecca and the Medina Railway Station Project," he says.

Training and developing Saudi nationals to take up technical jobs has been a priority for TCR Arabia, he says. The company has been successful in training several candidates from grass-root level and qualify them for field and laboratory activities. Frequent internal training and qualification programmes are carried out to develop the skills of the company’s staff.

"We are aiming to be the top inspection company in the kingdom, which can provide wide range of inspection services to our clients without much dependence on foreign manpower," he says.

As a service organisation, local manufacturing does not come under TCR Arabia’s scope, hence it concentrates more on local investment when it comes to purchasing apart from training local manpower. TCR Arabia has achieved a reasonable percentage on IKTVA from Saudi Aramco in the years 2016 and 2017 but it targets to achieve a better IKTVA score in the coming years, he says.

Referring to the company’s relationship with Sabic, he says Sabic has been one of its most valuable clients since the inception of TCR Arabia in Saudi Arabia.

"We have been working on Long-Form Global Contracts as well as on projects with Sabic. We have been participating in Technical Exchange Programmes in various plants in Sabic for several years and it would be fair to say that the technical teams and operations teams in Sabic possess great knowledge and understanding of advanced inspection techniques," he says.