Hand in Glove-Glass and Aluminium

Here at Gulf Glass exhibition we are used to welcoming aluminium company executives from all around the region and will do so again in March next year. No wonder, as the leading independent, targetted event for glass technology and manufacture, when it comes to construction the two products are inextricably linked.

Glass towers are favoured all over the GCC and surrounding regions and that means aluminium to hold it all. The GCC is embarking on an estimated $300 billion worth of infrastructure work, ten times what it was only two or three ago.

Where the twin technologies come together, impressive results are achieved. New aluminium and glass façades are going up at the King Abdallah University for Science & Technology (KAUST) at Thuwal, around 80km north of Jeddah. United Arab Aluminium Company (UAAC) has been chosen by contractor Saudi Aramco to install the façades in a deal worth SR 120 million.

UAAC has one of the most advanced glass and aluminium facilities in the whole of the Gulf region and boasts a production capacity of processed glass of 1200 sq.m. per day. The KAUST project, which the company aims to complete in a record time of 9 months, is just one of numerous prestigious developments in the Gulf faced with the glass/aluminium combo.

There is a massive increase in demand for both glass and aluminium and with current shortages, we have certainly seen rising prices. Take Saudi Arabia – aluminium prices were pretty stable for a decade and are now up 70%, or Dubai where prices rose by over 20% in only the first quarter this year.

The developers will have a big part to play in driving the new business which will catch the attention of all those at Gulf Glass 2009 in Sharjah. Some projects are behind schedule and some can’t even get properly underway due to the massive call on materials.

Major groups are of course responding and more capacity for both glass and aluminium has been announced. Algeria is to be home to the new joint venture aluminium factory being set up by Saudi’s CPC and the UAE’s Alumco (a major glass processor), reported to be an AED 100 million investment. This plant should be contributing around 50,000 tons per annum in around a year’s time.

Naturally enough, everyone is casting an eye to the UAE and how to keep the seemingly unstoppable engine of growth motoring smoothly. CPC is responding here too. As it announced its massive $27 million Techno Cast Precast investment, it has allocated a 300,000 sq.m. area to establish an industrial complex in Abu Dhabi. This will include both a glass factory and an aluminium extrusion factory.

This will add to the AED 80 million new aluminium and glass factory in Abu Dhabi Industrial City, the giant Al Taweelah Emal complex which will reportedly be the world’s largest, Reem Emirates Aluminium’s new wave-shaped architectural cladding factory (with its own 12,000 sq.ft. state-of-the-art glass processing facility) and, reportedly on stream from next year, Danube’s AED 50 million aluminium and glass manufacturing venture.

There is also new capacity underway or under construction in Saudi and Oman, putting the GCC alongside China and Russia as a leading global centre – one that some say will be manufacturing 10% of the world’s aluminium by 2010. Side by side, the story for glass follows the same pattern and with even more capacity needed in the next three years, augurs well for your key industry event partner – Gulf Glass 2009.

As we map every exciting step and showcase the latest technologies the world has to offer, go with us side by side as we build for the future – just like glass and aluminium.