Qanbar busy with mammoth project
Qanbar has supplied to virtually every major project in Jubail.
Qanbar Ready Mix is supplying the mega Sadara petrochemical complex in Jubail, having established a reputation for performance and quality and achieved a track record for high volume supply of readymix in the Eastern Province and the kingdom. QANBAR Ready Mix, one of the early pioneers of supplying top-‐quality ready mix to the Saudi construction sector, continues to build on its reputation of having supplied almost every development in Jubail with one of its latest mega projects involving the supply of 600,000 cu m of concrete to the massive Sadara petrochemical complex being built under Phase Two of Jubail Industrial City. When Gulf Construction visited the site, Qanbar was delivering 2,600 cu m of ready mix to a single site in Sadara with everything moving like clockwork. Qanbar Ready Mix is a key subsidiary of the Abdul Razzak Mohammed Qanbar Al Ansari Group of companies. The original company was founded in 1945 by Sheikh Mohammed Qanbar Al Ansari and now operates as Al Ansari Holding Company, whose wide activities include construction, manufacturing and real estate development. At the helm is Saud Al Ansari, chief executive of Al Ansari Holding Company, directing the group’s strategy and ensuring that each of the 12 separate companies with a combined total workforce of 3,000 including the flagship companies Qanbar Ready Mix and Qanbar Dywidag Precast Concrete Company (QDC) are independently managed and are performing well. Since the early 1970s when the late King Faisal conceived the idea of developing the twin industrial cities of Jubail and Yanbu, the Al Ansari group of companies has played a major role in the success story of Saudi Arabia and the GCC through its ready mix, precast concrete and construction interests to become one of the largest building products manufacturers in the GCC. Saud Al Ansari.
When the Royal Commission was established in Jubail and Yanbu by King Khaled in 1975, it was vested with special powers to facilitate the rapid development for the infrastructure development and management oversight of what were then the largest construction sites in the world. In a bold move reflecting the dynamic strategy that is a hallmark of the group, the company opened its first ready mix concrete operation in 1978 with joint venture partner Steetley of the UK. A second plant soon followed in Hofuf in 1980, with both plants continuing to operate today. As the massive development of Madinat Al Jubail Al Sinaiyah – or Jubail Industrial City – was gathering pace, Qanbar Ready Mix established its flagship facilities in the heart of the secondary industries area alongside QDC, the largest precast operation in the Eastern Province. QDC was formed in 1981 in partnership one of the largest German general contractors and precast concrete manufacturers, Dycherhoff and Widmann (Dywidag) and became wholly owned by Al Ansari Holding Company in 2002 with Dwyidag continuing its technical partnership. Three decades on, Qanbar Ready Mix continues to build upon its unrivalled reputation for quality ready mix and site batched concrete. The firm is increasing its capacity and workforce of more than 330 and continually investing in its fleet of 110 truck mixers, 30 concrete pumps, and mobile plants, making it one of the largest operators in the Eastern Province as it looks to expand its operations further afield.
Massive ... Qanbar to supply 600,000 cu m of concrete to Sadara.
Qanbar has played a key role in the development of the concrete industry in the kingdom and has taken a leadership role in quality and concrete technology. In 2010, the company received ISO 9001:2008 certification for its quality manufacturing processes. The company also places emphasis on energy efficiency and the development of concrete for sustainability in construction. Associated with many of the largest projects, Qanbar Ready Mix has built a strong reputation in the public and private sectors working as an approved supplier to Saudi Aramco, the Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), Saudi Royal Air Force and the Ministry of Defense and Aviation (Moda) and many more. The Sadara project, the world’s largest fully integrated petrochemical and chemical complex, with a price tag of $20 billion, is under construction 20 km from Qanbar Ready Mix facilities in Jubail. The multi-‐phase Sadara project, on its massive 64-‐sq-‐km construction site, will eventually comprise 26 chemical manufacturing units. The first phase units of this Saudi Aramco-‐Dow Chemical petrochemical joint venture project are scheduled to be ready by early 2015 with the remainder to be commissioned by 2016.
To serve this project, Qanbar Ready Mix erected a site plant at Sadara to handle the multiple large pours, which could be backed up by its facilities in Jubail. In early 2013, Qanbar set a company record on the Sadara project delivering the largest quantity of ready mix ever supplied as a single pour for the Jubail refineries. The company worked with Nasser S Al Hajri (NSH) and Daelim to deliver 5,000 cu m to the site in an 18-‐hour period at an average delivery rate of 275 cu m per hour.
Al-‐Ansari is rightly proud of the company’s association with the Sadara project and other such projects. “Part of Qanbar Ready Mix’s success story is being the main ready mix supplier to this world-‐stage strategic project. As a group, we always seek to be involved with quality projects not only to add value to the supply chain but to partner with the contractors and clients involved. As well as our track record in the Jubail area, Qanbar Ready Mix can operate anywhere in the kingdom. We have the necessary plant, equipment and a high level of mobility to set up batching plants on any site for large-‐scale projects such as Sadara, Wasit (one of the largest gas plants Saudi Aramco has ever built) and Satorp (Saudi Aramco-‐Total refinery project),” emphasizes Al Ansari. The team leader for ready mix on the Sadara site is Sharief Kamal Ali, marketing and business development manager for Qanbar Ready Mix. Ali is a veteran in concrete technology and a civil engineer by profession, a member of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and a member of the Qanbar Ready Mix board of directors. “My responsibilities included detailed consultation and negotiations with the client across a range of technical requirements in concrete specifications including discussions of the mix, certifications, approvals and third-‐party testing prior to production. It is very much a partnership with the client to ensure quality-‐assured production of the concrete to match the specified design and delivery to the construction deadlines. “All clients test our aggregates and visit storage areas at onsite and offsite production facilities. During the pours, inspection and testing takes place; quality control is essential throughout with rigorous quality assurance procedures in place,” says Ali.
Qanbar's ready mix plant in Jubail.
With ambient temperatures reaching 45 to 50 deg C in the summer, the control of the temperature of concrete is of paramount importance to ensure a maximum of 30 deg C at time of placing. Qanbar uses both chilled water and ice in production feeding directly into the various concrete batching plants; aggregates are stored in shaded areas with the materials pre-‐cooled using water mist spraying systems. Typically, to ensure the concrete meets specifications, the temperature of the mix is produced several degrees lower than the specification at around 26 deg C. “For the mega pour at Sadara, Qanbar was involved with detailed consultations and planning with the client, consultants and contractors. The logistics of the 5,000 cu m pour involved the operational deployment of eight pump trucks on site fed by 50 ready mix trucks from three plants in Jubail plus two mobile batching plants on the Sadara site. The concrete was poured into an area containing 465 tonnes of coated rebar and 350 sq m of formwork constructed by NSH in record time on the site area. “We have built our reputation on performance and have a long track record for high volume supply on the Satorp project which totalled 800,000 cu m, the Wasit Gas plant at 300,000 cu m. We are currently engaged in the supply of an expected 600,000 cu m to Sadara. We are delivering about 20,000 cu m per month on average for the projected 24-‐month period,” says Ali.
Elliott ... pride in performance.
On site in Sadara, Qanbar can deliver in 15 to 20 minutes and from the Jubail plant in under 60 minutes. Every aspect of the mix is controlled to meet the concrete design from the sand, aggregates, microsilica, water, ice, moisture content to absorption, slump rates and workability. The time from the batching plant to delivery on site and the start of the pour is, of course, critical, and specified as a maximum 90 minutes from production to point of discharge. Qanbar Ready Mix has been involved in almost every project in Jubail and many across the Eastern Province with the capacity and technical expertise for assured quality performance. As well as mega projects with Saudi Aramco, Qanbar is a major supplier to the Royal Commission, Sabic and numerous civil projects from housing schemes to shopping malls. Mark Elliott, general manager of Qanbar Ready Mix, is a veteran on the concrete industry who has worked extensively across the Middle East, the UK and North America. Elliott emphasizes the importance of health and safety in all aspects of the supply chain and production processes at the company’s onsite and offsite facilities and the exacting logistics of supplying ready mix as per specification to the point of delivery. “Qanbar Ready Mix can draw on the capacity of four fixed plants and also provides onsite batching which has established our reputation for handling larger-‐scale projects. The company takes pride in its
performance for producing quality-‐assured concrete which is based on the strictest safety guidelines across all aspects of its operations where nothing is left to chance in the supply chain from the batching plant to the clients’ site. “Our strength is the detail in our production and quality control from the sourcing of materials and mix designs, proven manufacturing processes to the maintenance and renewal of our plant and equipment. Everything Qanbar does is well planned, built upon a rigorous culture of health and safety from our production units. Through our supply chain to the training and quality of our staff, it is vital to control every aspect of our processes to meet delivery targets within agreed deadlines. We manage quality production from the batching plant to the point of discharge,” says Elliott.
