A conglomerate for industrial development

Saudi Arabia

Fares Al Shammari, chairman of the board of directors of Expertise Contracting Company, talks to The Energy Year about the company’s strengths as a one-stop shop and how the giga-projects in Saudi Arabia are different from previous large-scale projects in the country. Expertise Contracting Company is an industrial conglomerate with 12 different business verticals.

How is the company’s service portfolio divided?
From the beginning our vision was to be a one-stop shop. That’s the reason we have more than 250 long-term contracts with Saudi Aramco, SABIC and other prominent manufacturing companies around the kingdom.
We do not consider ourselves a rental equipment, maintenance or construction company. We are all these together. There are certain companies that are our competitors in rental, turnaround maintenance, construction or other services, but there is no company similar to us that combines these segments efficiently together.
Heavy equipment rental used to comprise 70% of our business portfolio, but now this figure is 35%. This is not because the rental market share has decreased. Rather, our other business verticals grew according to the market’s demand.

How are the giga-projects different from previous large-scale projects in Saudi Arabia?
The billion-dollar giga-projects, such as NEOM, Amaala and The Red Sea, are pushing development forward. It’s important to highlight that the government is working to maintain quality in every detail. They are especially interested in providing a healthy and comfortable environment to those who are working on the projects.
We had a SAR 400-million [USD 106.6-million] project at NEOM for building many modular cabins. When the authorities came, they inspected everything, even the doors. They required the cabins to have natural light inside, so the workers are comfortable when they arrive after 10 hours of work. The authorities go over all the details.
We are proud to be an organisation that is assisting the national development programme through projects such as NEOM, for which we provide support services, such as portable offices and temporary accommodation facilities. This is something truly new in the market.

What localisation opportunities has the company identified in the facility maintenance field?
Our clients sometimes suggest we move into new services that are not available locally in Saudi Arabia. For example, flare tip inspection and maintenance was provided by international companies for the past 30 years. We were outsourcing this work by subcontracting it to foreign players. With Covid lockdowns we saw the opportunity to send a crew to train in Europe and Dubai. We hired expert personnel, and we are now providing flare services locally with a full local team.
We have vast experience in static equipment maintenance, and we are now focusing on plants’ rotating equipment, such as turbines and motors. Clients normally give this critical maintenance to the OEM to ensure it is done correctly.
We crafted a scheme where we provide the rotating equipment maintenance for the client while the equipment inspection is done by the OEM. It’s a win-win situation for the client, for us and for the OEM, who will be relieved from doing the maintenance and will only need to do the quality control.

What are the main challenges in developing the renewable energy sector?
Renewable energy is a vast sector. The Saudi government is investing heavily to become a regional leader in renewables. The country is also investing a lot of venture capital in hydrogen and solar power.
There are many opportunities, but we need rules, regulations and governing laws. The Saudi Electricity Company is developing a legal framework to add solar power generation to the national electric grid. The Ministry of Energy is in the process of qualifying contractors to operate in renewable energy.
Expertise is open to any partnership that can add value to the Saudi market or international markets. As this is a very specialised field, we intend to go into technical JVs or alliances.

How important is the Saudi government’s presence in Iraq for encouraging companies to invest there?
We’re working in Kuwait and Bahrain, and now we are assessing opportunities in Iraq, as the market is huge there as well. Most of their refineries are obsolete, being built between 1960 and 1965. Iraq has substantial oil and gas reserves, but their petrochemical sector is nearly non-existent. There are many opportunities, as the Iraqi market will stabilise in 2023 or 2024.
Safety of investments is the main concern, but Saudi Arabia and the PIF [Public Investment Fund] are supporting Iraq. The government is working there with its main investment arm, which means the private sector can work confidently.

Read our latest insights on:

• Bahrain
• Iraq
• Kuwait
• Saudi Arabia