John Crane, a global leader in providing rotating equipment and other solutions for oil and gas industry, in partnership with Al-Ahed Trading and Contracting Co, one of Qatar's leading service providers for the energy industry, yesterday announced the opening of Qatar's first dry gas seal and testing facility.
John Crane, which is part of the US-based Smiths Group, is internationally acclaimed in providing rotating equipment solutions, supplying engineered technologies and services to process industries.
Located in Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLIC), the state-of-the-art facility is considered as the first-of-its-kind in the region. It will further strengthen Qatar's leading position as the most efficient and reliable LNG provider in the world. The facility will not only eliminate dependency on other countries for the refurbishment and repair services for dry gas seals and other products, but also cater to the needs of other countries.
Abdulaziz Al Muftah Vice-President, Industrial Cities Directorate, Qatar Petroleum, along with senior officials of John Crane and Al-Ahed Holding officially inaugurated the facility.
For nearly 40 years, Al-Ahed has represented John Crane within Qatar, providing a range of John Crane products and multidisciplinary services to oil and gas customers within the region. This service centre comes as part of John Crane's commitment to continue investing in and developing its network of global service centres, as well as bolster support for local customer service needs.
The new service centre, situated in Qatar's main production site for liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquid products, will provide John Crane with the capabilities necessary for aftermarket support for its customers within the region, while also allowing them to deliver quick turnaround service capabilities and reduce downtime costs.
'John Crane has been supporting energy sector companies in Qatar since the first compressors with dry gas seal technology were installed in the country, said Ruben Alvarez, Executive Vice-President, Sales and Aftermarket. 'Our continuous investment in local capabilities, such as our existing wet seal service centre and the request from our customers for local support, as well as a higher level of technology and service differentiation, clearly marked our strategy to commit to this investment.
The Ras Laffan service centre increases John Crane's localization efforts in the country, which closely aligns with the energy sector's vision. The opening of the center brings highly critical service and repair capabilities to Qatar's energy sector and provides support for local companies within the oil and gas, petrochemical, fertilizer, and power generation markets.
The service centre bolsters John Crane's capabilities to delivery highly critical services to repair and test dry gas seals locally within Qatar, and enables John Crane to provide end-to-end solutions to oil and gas customers. The service center includes spare part stocking services, along with the repair and balancing of standard and high-pressure couplings.
The facility will add local expertise to provide critical service capabilities that will help to reduce customer lead time, as well as reduce delivery and shipment costs.
'Considering local logistics, Qatari customers are demanding critical services like gas seal repair and testing, continued Alvarez. 'We are proud to be working with the government of Qatar, as well as Qatar Petroleum, to drive the localization of critical manufacturing and service capabilities. Establishing this first-of-its-kind facility within Qatar will allow us to dramatically reduce maintenance and shipping costs, while also decreasing delivery lead times. The phase two of the service centre will bring additional capabilities to cover wet seal product services and support.
John Crane's other service facility, located in the Salwa Industrial Area, in proximity to Doha, will continue to extend wet seal repair services to oil and gas customers within the region.
Al-Ahed is fully committed in providing John Crane products and services within Qatar. With the addition of the Ras Laffan service centre, Al-Ahed will now be able to provide unmatched local support for critical products such as mechanical seals, dry gas seal and coupling repairs, as well as provide technical and reliability engineering services all year round.