FACE TO FACE
WWW.CONSTRUCTIONWEEKONLINE.COM 3 - 30 AUGUST, 2019 CONSTRUCTION WEEK 25
UAE engineering giant National Petroleum Construction Company’s
CEO, Ahmed Al Dhaheri, opens up on nationalisation, expansion
outside the UAE, and the contractor’s foray into renewable energyM
uch like the country in which it is based,
the UAE’s National Petroleum Construction
Company (NPCC) likes to think big: its Abu
Dhabi fabrication yard is the largest in the
Middle East and North Africa, at 1.3km2. Within that
yard, it recently launched the largest oilfield platform in
the UAE as part of its work for the Abu Dhabi National
Oil Company’s (Adnoc) Umm Lulu field.
At the launch event for the project, banners hung off
of the 32,000-tonne platform, a maze of interconnected
pipes and facilities. The banners boasted that the platform
was made in the UAE, for the UAE.
The nation’s In-Country Value (ICV) initiative is pushing
companies who hope to do business in the UAE to use
local vendors, suppliers and talent as a boost to the local
supply chain and oil and gas ecosystem. As such, NPCC’s
chief executive officer, Ahmed Al Dhaheri, considers the
local construction of a platform – which is equivalent
in weight to three Eiffel Towers – a key milestone for
the company.
“This platform marks a new era for NPCC,” Al Dhaheri
says in conversation with Oil & Gas Middle East, a sister
title of Construction Week.
“It really shows the capabilities and competencies of
UAE companies, and how we are able to provide total
solutions to the oil and gas sector.
“It was an excellent opportunity to develop a large pool
of our UAE talent, many of whom led different teams
during the execution of the project,” he adds.The platform is just the latest part of NPCC’s work on
Adnoc’s Umm Lulu Package 2 Full Field Development
Project, the total value of which Al Dhaheri estimates at
more than $2.5bn – but he also sees potential outside of
the UAE’s borders.
“Last year was a remarkable year for the company – we
achieved around 85% of the total value of our projects
from outside of the UAE,” he says.
This includes a $231m onshore project it won in October
2018 from Kuwait Oil Company, a country in which the
company has been inactive for several years. NPCC
has also signed a contract with India’s ONGC and two
memorandums of understanding (MoU) with Egypt’s
Petrojet and offshore engineering, procurement, and
construction (EPC) company PMS.
“MoUs are helping us to understand the potential projects
and prospects in Egypt, and we are already succeeding,”
Al Dhaheri says.
“Maybe the [subsea] project we won in the Red Sea is
small, but this is the best way to understand the climate
of this market.”
Concurrently, NPCC saw a 27% increase in operating
profit in 2018, up from $190m to $242m, which Al Dhaheri
attributes to the company’s regional expansion. But this
strategy has its complications.
“If we look at the project we are executing in Kuwait,
local content is around 30%, so we need to utilise more
local suppliers, more subcontractors, we need to develop
Kuwaitis,” Al Dhaheri says.WORDS BY CARLA SERTIN
PORTRAITS BY ADEL RASHID