ABB floats new company with Suhail & Saud Bahwan

In a bid to further strengthen its 26 years of presence in Oman, the global technology giant, ABB Group has floated a local company in association with Suhail & Saud Bahwan (SSB). According to official sources, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI) had approved the formation of the local company, ABB in the second week of August.
Suhail & Saud Bahwan has been associated with ABB Group for the last 26 years. Currently, ABB Group is bidding for two large projects in Oman. Of late, ABB was awarded a $ 17.3 mm contract by the Ministry of Housing, Electricity and Water (MHEW) for a load dispatch centre (LDC) and communication system.
The scope of the delivery comprises a new control room, state-of-the-art computer systems, power system interface equipment and modern digital communication systems. The contract also includes a comprehensive two-year maintenance agreement and the overall project completion time is twenty-three months. ABB Lummus, a group company, had won $ 10 mm project management contract of Sohar refinery project in April.

The local company, ABB will provide ABB Group with marketing support, sales and service and maintenance for the latter's world-class products. ABB has direct operations in all the Gulf and Middle East countries.
Middle East region had emerged the third largest in terms of ABB's order position in 2000 indicating a 12 % share at $ 3 bn. Europe, Americas and Asia shared first, second and fourth positions at 51 %, 26 % and 11 % respectively. The $ 25 bn ABB Group has executed several projects in Oman and its prestigious clientele include Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), Oman Cement Company, Raysut Cement Company, Ministry of Defence and Oman Refinery Company.
Thomas Jivung, ABB Group representative and general manager of ABB, the newly floated company, told that ABB would bring in the entire ABB product range including power and automation products for utilities, manufacturing and process industries under one proof.

Recently, ABB acquired FIP,a leading supplier of pressure containing equipment for oil and gas production in Mexico. The acquisition will broaden ABB's product range as well as open new markets for ABB's existing products in the growing Mexican oil and gas market.
ABB is also in the process of designing and building a gas compressor station on pipeline, linking Algeria and Europe. The company has recently acquired a minority stake IFS, a Swedish software giant. It won a $ 17 mm power transmission contract in Laos to design and build a 340 km power transmission line, complete with a 282 km power distribution network. It has also won a $ 17 mm contract to automate the world's largest paper machine.

In June, ABB opened an office in Korea to help improve the performance of Korea's electricity transmission network and basic industries. It had also won $ 300 mm contract to design and build two high voltage power transmission systems with a combined length of nearly 1,300 km to help satisfy the steadily increasing demand for energy in Brazil and a $ 14-mm contract to upgrade Irish power network.
In May, the Norwegian energy resource group, Norsk Hydro awarded ABB a $ 110-mm contract to maintain and modify oil and gas installations in the North Sea. ABB's automation and technology products division offers a complete range of hardware and software products for automation and control, robotics, metering, drives, motors, switches and accessories, low voltage products, and technologies, etc.

The utilities division serves electric, gas and water sectors. While the process industries division serves industries such as pulp and paper, printing, mining and metals, cement, chemicals, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, shipping and marine, etc.
The group's oil, gas and petrochemical division has special expertise in deep-sea oil and gas recovery and polymer processing. Power technology products division offers a complete range of transformers, switchgears, apparatus, cables, etc. The group is also into financial services, such as insurance, structured finance, development and ownership of private infrastructure projects, leasing and finance, etc.
The group spent $ 703 mm on research and development last year. It has more than 1,200 researchers and eight corporate research centres worldwide.
ABB serves manufacturing, process and consumer industries, utilities, the oil and gas markets with 160,000 employees in more than 100 countries.