CHICAGO (April 24, 2019) — John Crane, a global leader in rotating equipment solutions, supplying engineered technologies and services to process industries, in partnership with Al-Ahed Trading and Contracting Co., one of Qatar’s leading oil and gas, and energy service providers, today announced the opening of Qatar’s first dry gas seal and testing facility.
For nearly 40 years, Al-Ahed has represented John Crane within Qatar, providing a range of John Crane products and multidisciplinary services to oil and gas customers within the region. This service center comes as part of John Crane’s commitment to continue investing in and developing its network of global service centers, as well as bolster support for local customer service needs.
Located in the Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLIC) security area, an industrial hub approximately 80 kilometers north of Doha, Qatar, which serves as Qatar’s main production site for liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquid products, the new service center is Qatar’s first dry gas seal repair and testing facility. The new service center will provide John Crane with the capabilities necessary for aftermarket support for its customers within the region, while also allowing them to deliver quick turnaround service capabilities and reduce downtime costs.
“John Crane has been supporting energy sector companies in Qatar since the first compressors with dry gas seal technology were installed in the country,” said Ruben Alvarez, Executive Vice President, Sales and Aftermarket. “Our continuous investment in local capabilities, such as our existing wet seal service center and the request from our customers for local support, as well as a higher level of technology and service differentiation, clearly marked our strategy to commit to this investment.”
The Ras Laffan service center increases John Crane's localization efforts in the country, which closely aligns with the energy sector's vision. The opening of the center brings highly critical service and repair capabilities to Qatar’s energy sector and provides support for local companies within the oil and gas, petrochemical, fertilizer, and power generation markets. Capabilities include:
- Repair and testing of dry gas seals: The service center bolsters John Crane’s capabilities to delivery highly critical services to repair and test dry gas seals locally within Qatar, and enables John Crane to provide end-to-end solutions to oil and gas customers. The service center includes spare part stocking services, along with the repair and balancing of standard and high-pressure couplings.
- Local expertise: The facility will add local expertise to provide critical service capabilities that will help to reduce customer lead time, as well as reduce delivery and shipment costs.
“Considering local logistics, Qatari customers are demanding critical services like gas seal repair and testing,” continued Alvarez. “We are proud to be working with the government of Qatar, as well as Qatar Petroleum, to drive the localization of critical manufacturing and service capabilities. Establishing this first-of-its-kind facility within Qatar will allow us to dramatically reduce maintenance and shipping costs, while also decreasing delivery lead times.”
Phase two of the service center will bring additional capabilities to cover wet seal product services and support.
John Crane’s other service facility, located in the Salawa Industrial Area, in proximity to Doha, will continue to extend wet seal repair services to oil and gas customers within the region.
Al-Ahed is fully committed in providing John Crane products and services within Qatar. With the addition of the Ras Laffan service center, Al-Ahed will now be able to provide unmatched local support for critical products such as mechanical seals, dry gas seal and coupling repairs, as well as provide technical and reliability engineering services all year round.
###
About John Crane
John Crane is a global leader in rotating equipment solutions, supplying engineered technologies and services to process industries. The company designs and manufactures a variety of products including mechanical seals and systems, couplings, filtration systems and predictive digital monitoring technologies. John Crane customer service is accessed through a global network of more than 200 sales and service facilities in over 50 countries. Fiscal year 2018 revenue was greater than 1.1 Billion USD (£881m). John Crane is part of Smiths Group, a global leader in applying advanced technologies for markets in threat and contraband detection, energy, medical devices, communications, and engineered components.