Mammut Building Systems - one of the fastest-growing manufacturers of pre-engineered steel buildings (PEBs) in the Middle East and the largest in the UAE - has announced that it plans to enter the Saudi market in mid-2003 and is now looking for aggressive and established contractors to appoint as authorised builders in both Dammam and Riyadh.

Mammut moved to its new factory in Hamriyah Free Zone - which has a production capacity of 36,000 tonnes of steel per year - last January and is currently expanding it and doubling its covered area to accommodate the increased demand for its PEBs and its planned expansion in several new export markets, especially Saudi Arabia.

Mammut has recently acquired two continuous foaming machines for the production of polyurethane-injected sandwich panels, one of which will be installed at its factory in Sharjah and the other in Qatar.

"The addition of sandwich panels to our product line will greatly enhance our competitiveness as more and more customers are now specifying sandwich panels instead of fibreglass blanket insulation to insulate their steel buildings," says general manager Muayyad Khudairi. "We will have the ability to produce 300,000 sq m of sandwich panels per month which is almost equal to the current installed production capacity of sandwich panels in the whole of the GCC."

Mammut's target, according to Khudairi, is to capture 50 per cent of the market for pre-engineered steel buildings in the UAE and Qatar by the end of 2003 and 30 per cent of the market for sandwich panels in the GCC by the end of 2004.

Mammut says it is the only PEB manufacturer that offers to sell its pre-engineered buildings on the basis of 'supply and erection' in the UAE. "This is very popular among general contractors who want single-source responsibility for the supply and erection of pre-engineered steel buildings and who do not want to pay the high mark-up often applied by certified builders of other PEB manufacturers," says Khudairi.

One of the projects that Mammut is currently busy with is a PEB complex for the Abu Dhabi Pipes and Profiles Industries (Adipco), which it says will be the largest pre-engineered steel building in the Middle East when completed.

The complex will cover an area of 250,000 sq m and consist of five non-identical buildings where different types of pipes and other rolled steel products will be produced.

The buildings' frames will support 72 overhead cranes, all spanning 30 m. All the crane bridges - each 30 m long - are being produced by Mammut as well as several 24-m-long jack beams and crane runway beams.

Mammut will participate in next month's SaudiBuild 2002 exhibition and invites industrial and general contractors from the Eastern and Central provinces of Saudi Arabia to visit its stand and learn more about its products, services and values.

"We are not the largest PEB manufacturer in the GCC yet and it is not important that we become the largest, but we do have the best management team in the PEB industry in the GCC, a team that knows the factors that result in total customer satisfaction and retained clientele and a team that has achieved a successful track record in the past," says Khudairi.

Mammut invites inquiries for pre-engineered steel buildings from Saudi Arabia, which should be emailed to sales@mammut.ae.