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[September 2007]
Porcellan Company to Set Up in Abu Dhabi
Jamal Al Ghurair, Chairman of the UAE manufacturing Jamal Al Ghurair Group, is behind the project to build one of the largest industrial centres in the whole Gulf region at Abu Dhabi, serving the gypsum and ceramic tiles sector. The two subsidiaries, Gypsemna Company and Porcellan Company, will be fully operational by first quarter of 2008.
Al Ghurair, which is already involved in the construction and sugar refining industries, thus aims to make its mark in the ceramic tile market too. Porcellan will have an initial production capacity of 18 million square metres per year (50,000 sq.m./day), a figure which is soon expected to double.
For the start-up of Porcellan production, Jamal Al Ghurair has turned to Sacmi (Imola, BO, Italy) as its guaranteed supplier. Sacmi is to supply full production lines, which include: modular mills of 180,000 litres capacity, ATM spray dryer with 200,000 litres capacity, PH3800 and PH6200 presses and kilns of max. length of 218.4m, complete with groundbreaking integrated energy recirculation system between combustion and spray dryer.
The order is completed with an automatic TGV shuttle fleet for handling green and fired tile storage plus pallets, nine sorting lines and seven palletisers, all produced by Sacmi Automation and designed specially for large sizes.
A large part of the 18 million square metres to be produced by Porcellan each year will be glazed and polished tiles, large sized porcelain stoneware tiles – 400mm x 400mm up to 1200mm x 1200mm - as well as tiles decorated with soluble salts, hi tech porcelain stoneware and top of the range products. Sacmi is also supplying material for the preparation of glazes, plus an innovative, high efficiency and low consumption system for the preparation of coloured slips.
The investments made by Jamal Al Ghurair are backed up by a steady increase – at a rate of 10% per annum – in the demand for ceramic tiles within the UAE and surrounding markets, as well as in the global one.
ENDS