Saudi Arabia’s leading steel manufacturer Zamil Steel is looking forward to consolidate on its strengths and emerge as one of the largest producers of quality steel products in the region – especially, given its excellent performance in the last couple of years.

Zamil Steel holds a global leadership position in the design and manufacture of pre-engineered steel buildings and is also the Middle East’s premier supplier of structural steel products, pressure vessels, transmission and telecommunications towers, open web steel joists and floor deckings.  
Despite the issues affecting the steel industry over the past year, all of Zamil Steel’s business units achieved remarkable performance in 2004, with a significant growth in turnover and production as well as entry into new growth markets around the world.  
Putting its achievements into context, Zamil Steel increased its turnover in 2004 by 54.2 per cent over the previous year reaching SR1.07 billion ($286.5 million) and, at the same time, its consolidated exports to international markets rose by 87.4 per cent to SR631 million ($168.2 million).
“During the past year, Zamil Steel has been involved in many large and complex projects. The percentage of projects that are larger than 5,000 sq m have increased from a mere 27 per cent of our total projects in 2000 to over 55 per cent in 2004. This represents a four-fold increase in terms of volume,” says marketing manager Fadi Mujahed.
“We continue to build our strategy around our vision ‘to be the world’s premier solution provider of low-rise steel building systems’ leading us to develop our internal capabilities and our approaches to work on projects that are not typically pre-engineered buildings and not even steel buildings,” he says.
The company meets the growing demand for its products and solutions from its five units – three of which are located in Saudi Arabia, and the remaining in Vietnam and Egypt – which generate a cumulative PEB production of over 180,000 tonnes.  However, including products such as structural steel, towers and galvanising and Canam Asia, Zamil Steel’s overall production capacity in steel structures exceeds 270,000 tonnes per year.
“Our factories are running at over 90 per cent capacity and plans are under way to increase production capacities further by extending the operations of some of existing plants and opening new factories in other areas. In addition, when compared to 2003, we have increased our turnover by over 50 per cent.
The company has also put in place a plan for the easy procurement of steel for production. “Due to the large amounts of steel that we require monthly – which runs to roughly over 20,000 tonnes – we source our steel strategically from various sources and from reliable suppliers and maintain a strict vigil on the aspects of quality and specifications,” he says.
“While an increasing percentage or our steel is coming from Saudi Arabia, especially plates, other types of steel such as thick plates, hot rolled galvanised coils, cold-formed high-grade coils, long products, are imported from various sources mainly Korea, Japan, India, Egypt, and the UK,” he adds.
Elaborating on the diverse experience the company has gained over the years, he says: “We have delivered our buildings to over 75 markets. Thus, we tend to say that our design experience extends over 75 countries.
“However, we design our buildings to all common American standards such as AISC, AISI, UBC and other. We also design our buildings to Eurocode and British Standards. In many markets, we follow local design standards such as Vietnamese, Chinese, Egyptian, Indian and other local codes.
“Zamil has over 400 design and detailing engineering in five countries. All these engineers use our in-house developed software ASFAD and eZ-Build, which we believe is the most advanced PEB design software in the industry.
“We are continuously working towards speeding up our engineering processes. To give you an example, a simple low-complex building would normally require two days to design and to prepare engineering approval drawings. In 2004, we launched an upgrade of eZ-Build, which reduced the cycle time to just two hours. This increase in our operational efficiency adds to our overall capabilities and improves our services to our clients,” he adds.
PEB
Zamil Steel’s Pre-Engineered Buildings Business Unit (PEB) is its oldest and largest business unit with a monthly production capacity of 8,500 tonnes. The Dammam-based facility is said to be the largest single PEB factory in the world.
This business unit achieved record production levels in 2004 and shipped over 84,000 tonnes of pre engineered steel buildings from its Saudi factory, a 33.5 per cent increase over 2003. Sales booked in the period was up 63 per cent, reaching 104,000 tonnes. To meet demand, manufacturing capacity was increased by a further 30 per cent and state-of-the-art machinery was commissioned.
One of the more challenging structures that the company is associated with right now is the Le Villaggio retail, sports and entertainment centre in Doha. The project stands out amongst the several other projects undertaken by the company on the grounds of sheer complexity.
“Instead of using concrete, precast or structural steel materials as the main structural system for this building, we offered a solution that combined a pre-engineered steel building (PEB) system with open web joists and decking panels,” says marketing manager Fadi Mujahed. “This is a revolution in the traditional PEB system that is normally used in. However, the biggest design and erection challenge of the project was that it had a massive clear building span of 92 m – a record using a PEB system.”
For the building, which has an approximate floor area of 100,000 sq m, Zamil supplied 115,000 sq m of the company’s thermally insulated sandwich panels (Tempcon).
Another challenging project undertaken by the company was for a cold-rolling steel mill for Unicoil in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. This 3,800-tonne project was an engineering design and detailing challenge with its heavy cranes, multiple level walkways and internal cage ladders. The challenge in erecting the building was no less with its laced columns rising 38.7 m high and heavy framing, he says.
Last year, Zamil Steel was awarded over 1,400 large and complex building projects from various parts of the world.
Other recently completed projects include: The Mall of Dhahran, Sari Mall and Aziz Mall in Jeddah, and the Qassim Cement Factory.
The success of this business unit is partly due to the efficiencies achieved through its upgraded ‘eZ-Build’ engineering software, which automates design and estimation of pre engineered buildings. 
2004 saw a number of product innovations including the introduction of the Dx and EX concealed steel and aluminium fastener panels, which improve the fit and finish of external walls, liners and partitions.
Structural Steel
The Structural Steel Business Unit (SSBU), established in 1983, undertakes design, planning, fabrication and project management of structural steel projects for commercial and heavy industrial applications such as power and desalination plants, petrochemical, gas and oil facilities, cement factories, steel mills and high-rise steel structures.
It achieved a record performance in 2004, with a six per cent increase in production to over 34,000 tonnes and an unprecedented level of engineering releases to manufacturing. This is in addition to the successful product diversification into process equipment, such as boilers and pressure vessels.
This business unit recently completed the potline buildings of the Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) Line 5 expansion project in Bahrain. The project, worth in excess of SR100 million ($26,664), was completed recently. Other projects in 2004 include a number of contracts for various clients – Saudi Electricity Company’s Shoaiba power plant, the Dolphin onshore oil and gas plant in Qatar, the Abu Hasa oil and gas plant and the Sajaa gas plant in the UAE.
The SSBU has also developed its operations with the recent competition of a 100,000 sq m expansion and the opening of a new regional sales office in Dubai to serve the UAE and Oman. The business unit has also recently invested in state-of-the-art plate and pipe bending machinery, plasma cutting equipment, hydraulic presses and shearing and drilling machines.
Engineering capabilities have also been enhanced with the addition of the X-Steel computer-aided design system, a more efficient replacement for its previously system.
Towers & galvanising
Zamil Steel’s Towers & Galvanizing Business Unit (T&G) produces premium galvanised steel towers for electrical transmission and telecommunications projects as well as other specialised lattice steel structures.
In a milestone development, it recently supplied 130 telecommunication towers to India in a three-week fast-track delivery project. Other firsts include the successful design and testing of multi-circuit towers for the UAE’s Federal Electricity and Water Authority and the design and approval of rooftop, wall mounted and other towers for Saudi mobile telecom operator, Ettihad Etisalat.
Canam Asia
Canam Asia Limited is also part of the Zamil Steel fold as a joint venture between Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC) and Steel Plus, a subsidiary of Canam Manac Group of Canada. The business manufactures and supplies open web steel joists and floor decking, providing innovative, low-cost solutions for many roofing and flooring challenges.
Shipments in 2004 reached 3,442 tonnes, an increase of 32 per cent over previous levels. Production has also increased by more than 100 per cent over 2003 through utilisation of industrial engineering techniques.
Major projects in 2004 include the Aziz and Sari Malls in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and National Commercial Bank, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The product range has also been expanded with the fabrication of new curved joists suited to a range of additional applications.
Established in 1977, Zamil Steel has gone from strength to strength and currently boasts a 2,500-strong workforce and a turnover in excess of SR1 billion. 
Zamil Steel products are marketed in more than 75 countries through a network of 50 sales offices, 59 certified builders and 27 agents and distributors.