Gabbro Terminal Expansion
Leading bulk ports experience to bring Qatar’s infrastructure vision to life
Most of the building materials in Qatar are supplied by Qatar Primary Materials Company (QPMC) through its Port of Umm Sa’id terminal. In response to the country’s massive infrastructure development programme in preparation for the FIFA 2022 World Cup™, QPMC initiated an expansion of the port to boost the annual flow of gabbro from 16.6 Mtpa to 30 Mtpa to ensure a reliable supply of building materials.
We provided leading bulk ports experience and sophisticated modelling technology to help the port almost double its capacity, ensuring the Qatari construction industry receives a steady and reliable supply of gabbro.
“One of our primary goals is to maintain strategic reserves of primary building materials to ensure we can supply materials at any time the need arises.” said engineer Eisa Al-Hammadi, chief executive officer of QPMC. “We hold rich reserves that can address the current market requirements when it comes to primary materials such as gabbro. We are committed to providing complete solutions for the transport, storage and delivery of key primary materials to support the burgeoning construction industry in Qatar.”
Based on decades of experience in delivering and increasing throughput of some of the largest terminals in the world, our approach to the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract focused on the performance and efficiency of the proposed infrastructure and the integration of the new terminal facilities with both the upstream and downstream supply chain processes.
Glenn Hallahan, project director, said the key to the success of this project was understanding the ultimate requirements and aligning all stakeholders to support them. “At the time, we had recently assisted with the expansion of the Port of Fujairah in the UAE, so, in our first review of the project, we knew that a more detailed understanding of the impact on the supply chain would be required. We recommended advanced simulation modelling to evaluate the likely effects of the new design,” explained Hallahan.
The modelling presented by us clearly demonstrated that to achieve the targeted throughput, changes were required from all supply chain partners. This included both upstream (quarries and shipping companies) and downstream (consignees) parties.
“One of our primary goals is to maintain strategic reserves of primary building materials to ensure we can supply materials at any time the need arises.”
A key contributor to our success was our commitment to the client’s success.
We also worked with QPMC to bring better efficiency to the portside stockyard and showed how consignees should collect their cargo within 21 days to ensure the stockyard always has space to unload other ships in the queue. This information could then be factored into the process of establishing the fee-charging structure, and ensure it was designed to encourage consignees to support portside stockyard requirements.
“We had a team of 14 people working locally in Qatar, but we were supported brilliantly by over 100 of our colleagues from all over the world,” said Hallahan. “A key contributor to our success was our commitment to the client’s success. By showing them other possible options to their plan that were in their best interest, we built a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. We are proud to play a key role in the development of QPMC and, ultimately, Qatar.”
The Gabbro Terminal Expansion Project was awarded numerous accolades in 2017, including the Bulk Commodities Port/Terminal of the Year, Port/Terminal of the Year – Middle East, Port/Terminal Software/Operating System of the Year, which were all awarded by the The Global Ports Forum. The project was also the Winner of the Construction Business News’ Construction Innovation Awards Qatar in 2017.
*The Aurecon Africa business has been officially renamed Zutari as at 21 July 2020. Zutari acquired Aurecon Middle East on 20 November 2020.
