01 March 2009

ARABIAN Tiles Company (Artic), which acquired a local glassfibre reinforced concrete (GRC) manufacturing unit in 1993, has made giant strides in the GRC market since it entered into the business.

Today, Artic GRC has much to boast about. It is one of the leading GRC manufacturers in the region and the largest in Saudi Arabia, having considerably expanded its Riyadh base and set up a new state-of-the-art factory in the Western Province late last year.
It also claims to be the only facility in the region to use advanced five-axis CNC machines that can cut dimensionally accurate and complex patterns. This technology leads to the creation of high-quality moulds that have a 99.9 per cent accuracy.
“This new technology gives us a competitive edge in the market as it enables us to handle the complex jobs that our rivals in the market cannot tackle,” Raed Lahham, general manager tells Gulf Construction.
Artic GRC, which commanded a 30 per cent share of the GRC market in Saudi Arabia last year, is now targeting a 50 per cent share given the resources of its new factory.
Artic, owned by Aggad Investment Company (AICO), was established in 1976 and has three production sites: two in Riyadh and one in Jeddah.
In January 1993, Artic acquired the assets and assumed certain loan liabilities of Saudi GRC Company, from the company’s liquidator and formed Artic GRC division. This division is engaged in the design, manufacture, and erection of GRC structures for external use including decorative sun screens, cornices, columns, and wall cladding, balustrades and arches; decorative window screens, window surrounds, friezes and also other decorative elements such as planters, trash boxes and many more.
 Elaborating on this acquisition, he says: “Saudi GRC was originally founded as a joint venture between Tobaishi, Manufacturing and Building Company (Mabco) and a technical partner Pilkington, and was the first business to manufacture GRC. However, the business experienced financial difficulties and Mabco later acquired Pilkington’s share in the joint venture. In 1992, the liquidation of Mabco following financial problems resulted in the liquidation and sale of assets of Saudi GRC to Artic.
“In April 1993, the old plant was relocated to a new facility in the Second Industrial city of Riyadh and a major capital investment was initiated. The 29,700 sq m plant in the Second Industrial City has been considerably upgraded – the first major upgrade being the incorporation of the five-axis technology in 2002. Since then, there have been a number of expansions, with the latest having been implemented last year taking its capacity to 8,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of GRC.”
The new Jeddah facility, which features the latest version of the five-axis technology, was set up to meet the growing demand for GRC in the Western Province. The 20,000 sq m factory commenced operations last November and has a production capacity of 6,000 tpy.
“Our Jeddah factory was set up specifically to cater to the requirements of the huge King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust), located some 30 km away,” Lahham states. “The massive Kaust project involves some 400 deliveries of huge GRC panels. We initially started supplying the project from our Riyadh factory and are now catering to the project's requirements from our Jeddah facility. This has provided major savings in transportation costs and has eased the logistics while also speeding up supply to site.”
Artic is one of the key GRC suppliers to the Kaust facility under a subcontract to the main contractor Saudi Binladin, which also has its own GRC manufacturing division.
Setting up the Western Province factory, in fact, has proved to be a very good move, he says, as the facility is now serving a vast catchment area that includes Madinah, Makkah and Jeddah, where extensive use is made of GRC for the external façade elements.
Commenting on the company’s GRC business, Lahham says: “Demand for GRC is high as the versatile material can be used in diverse applications. Lightweight but strong, the material is used extensively for exterior applications where it exhibits high resistance to temperature extremes as well as rain. We are very busy supplying to a number of large projects not only in Saudi Arabia but also further afield in the UAE as well as Qatar, where we have been involved with the prestigious Pearl-Qatar project.”
Artic has been providing GRC elements to The Pearl-Qatar, a high-profile man-made residential island development, for the past two years. It has a full engineering team to follow up work on the project as well as an erection team to ensure the project is carried out according to the specifications. Production of the GRC elements is carried out at the Riyadh facility.
“The Pearl-Qatar project is a major feather in our cap as the project’s specifications are very high. We have received very positive feedback from the client, who rates us as one of the best GRC suppliers on the project and is very happy with our work,” says Lahham.
Artic complies with high British international standards in its production process and is also a member of the UK-based GRCA (Glass Reinforced Concrete Association).
The company realises that research and development (R&D) is vital for its further growth in the market and hence has set up an R&D facility which is focused on enhancing its GRC mix design as well as developing various formulas for different applications, according to Lahham.
The company has a staff of 500 employees, split between the design and production and the erection teams. Apart from GRC, Artic is also one of the largest manufacturers of terrazzo tiles, blocks and grinding stones in Saudi Arabia. Apart from the GRC division, Artic operates two other divisions:
• Tiles division, which manufactures and distributes terrazzo floor tiles, terrazzo treads, risers, kerbstone, interlocking pavers, blocks, and cement tiles; and
• Grinding stones division, which produces and distributes grinding and polishing stones for terrazzo, marble, and granite.
The company has also recently added glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) and glass reinforced gypsum (GRG) to its range of products.

• Record rise for GRC in region
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• Tech-driven Artic GRC secures market niche

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