Shaw Group Begins Construction of Pipe-Manufacturing Facility in Abu Dhabi

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Shaw Group Incorporated (NYSE:SHAW) (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) has begun construction on a state-of-the-art pipe-prefabrication facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The construction of the 300,000-square-foot facility in the Abu Dhabi Industrial City will be under the control of Shaw subsidiary Shaw Emirates Pipe Manufacturing LLC (Abu Dhabi, UAE), which will also operate the plant after its completion in 2011.

In a company press release, Shaw Chairman, President and CEO, J.M. Bernhard Jr., said: "Significant large capital projects are under way in the Middle East that will impact the region's infrastructure in multiple industries--nuclear power, water, refinery, petrochemical and chemical. As these projects proceed in the next several years, Shaw Emirates Pipe Manufacturing will have the capability to fully support these initiatives with world class piping systems, prefabricated to the highest quality."

Shaw has developed the industry standard for pipe prefabrication, which is the construction of custom pipe systems by welding and fitting components together under a factory-controlled environment. Prefabrication generates greater efficiency and higher quality than field fabrication, which enables cost savings to be passed on to customers.

The new facility will add considerably to Shaw's existing 60,000-square-foot pipe prefabrication facility in Manama, Bahrain, which was established in 1994 through a joint venture with Bahrain's Abdulla Ahmed Nass Group. Joint venture company Shaw Nass Middle East WLL (Manama). Shaw Nass supplies carbon and stainless steel pipe rolls for the Ghazlan II power plant in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia.

Shaw operates eight prefabrication facilities in the U.S. and two outside the U.S., all of which are equipped with the latest technology for the construction of pipe systems. One of the significant aspects of Shaw's technology is in the use of induction bending for pipes. This method is preferred over the cut, fit and weld alternative, and Shaw has the capacity to bend steel pipes up to 66 inches in diameter and with wall thicknesses of up to 5 inches.

Shaw's prefabrication facilities are capable of producing 35,000 pipe spools each month. The 10 facilities are operated and coordinated under an integrated system using the proprietary software ShawDraw and ShawMan, which enable Shaw to track the fabrication process through all the stages.

Although the Middle East pipe sector appears to be warming up, Shaw and other steel pipe fabricators could face competition from plastic pipe systems. The three most important Middle Eastern growth sectors--construction, infrastructure and packaging--are all candidates for extruded polyethylene and polypropylene random copolymer pipes, and the markets for these are growing rapidly.

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