Middle East’s largest industrial contractor Nasser S. Al Hajri Corporation has been participating as a subcontractor in the piping construction of the world's largest crude oil refinery in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The superior quality, easy transportability, and excellent local support of Kemppi’s welding equipment help the welders reach their demanding quality targets at the giant site.

Established in Saudi Arabia in 1978, Nasser S. Al Hajri Corporation (NSH) has become the largest industrial contractor in the Middle East with operations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The corporation provides construction and fabrication services to the full spectrum of the industrial and infrastructure work area including commercial and industrial buildings, oil and gas, refineries, and petrochemicals. NSH has a mighty workforce of 60 000 employees, of which 10 000 are welders who produce a 600 000-diameter inch daily workload.

NSH has been working as a subcontractor in piping construction and prefabrication in two sub-projects that are part of constructing the Saudi Aramco’s giant crude oil refinery in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. Expected to be fully operational in early 2019 and producing 400 000 barrels per day, Jizan will be the world’s largest refinery based on crude oil only. The main contractors of these two sub-projects are Korean SK Engineering and Italian Saipem.

Main challenge

At the refinery building site, the pipe welders face demanding performance and quality requirements. All work is standardized according to ASME, ARAMCO, QA/QC, and ISO. To meet the requirements, the welders need reliable and easily transportable equipment, which is powerful enough and provides also good work ergonomics. The quality of the piping work is essential for smooth operation of the refinery and for minimizing environmental risks that a leak could cause to the Red Sea.

Kemppi's solution

NSH has a long history of working with Kemppi's welding equipment – they already had nearly 2000 of them. For this contract, the corporation purchased nearly 1000 additional MinarcTig Evo welding machines from Kemppi’s Saudi Arabian distributor Alruqee. This deal also included MasterTig MLS 4000 equipment for DC-TIG and Master S 400 for stick (MMA) welding applications, and on-site supporting engineering tasks.

Responsible for supply chain management of the projects, NSH's Procurement Director S. K. Kumar says that his company has reached a very good position in the market with its commitment, quality, and capacity.

“We buy proven quality equipment from reputed sources with competitive prices,” Kumar describes his company’s purchase policy. ”The suppliers also have ARAMCO approval, prompt delivery, constant quality, and good technical support. With Kemppi and their local distributor Alruqee, we have had a good history in previous projects and good local support at the site.”

”The welders are also satisfied with the equipment quality, and the output of the equipment was in line with our expectations. Kemppi and Alruqee are trustworthy partners and cooperative in their technical support. We look forward to maintaining our relationship with them in future projects,” Kumar continues.