The Jamal Al Ghurair Group will this year commission two new building materials factories, including the UAE’s first gypsum plaster board facility, in Abu Dhabi.

The two facilities – Gypsemna Company and Porcellan Company – are located in Mussafah Industrial City (ICAD 2) and are part of the group’s foray into the region’s booming construction sector.
The Jamal Al Ghurair Group is operator of Al Khaleej Sugar in Jebel Ali, one of the biggest sugar refineries in the Gulf.
Gypsemna, which is to be commissioned by the last quarter of 2008, will have an annual capacity of 50 million sq m or 150,000 sq m of gypsum boards per day, making it one of the largest of its kind in the Middle East. “By global standards too, it is one of the largest-capacity plants,” says Dilip Kumar Borah, technical manager with Jamal Al Ghurair Group.
The company will start with plaster boards and later add gypsum blocks. The idea is to have a diverse range within the same product family, says Borah.
Work on the project started in January 2007 and a contract for the machinery was signed in May with Germany’s Grenzebach.
Gypsum plaster boards are being imported by companies in the UAE and the volumes are increasing by around 25 per cent every year as a result of increasing construction activities.
“From a100 per cent importing country, we want the UAE to become an exporting country. The company aims to export around 50 to 60 per cent of its production,” said Borah.
The world market is estimated around 8 billion sq m and is mostly concentrated around the US which is about half the market at around 3.75 billion sq m. Other markets are Europe, Japan, the Far East and India.
Natural gypsum as raw material will be sourced in Iran. Gypsemna will add chemicals to make the boards more fire resistant than they already are. All the products will meet ASTM C 1396 and DIN 18180 standards.
Meanwhile, Porcellan, which is expected to start production by the second quarter of this year, will have the capacity to manufacture 18 million sq m of tiles per year or 50,000 sq m per day, and will eventually be expanded by a similar capacity.
Porcellan will be looking beyond the GCC market although the local market is very important, says Nagi Beshara, deputy general manager (sales and marketing), Jamal Al Ghurair Group.
Beshara says demand for porcelain tiles has also been growing nearly 10 per cent annually in the last five years.
Among the importing countries, the US ranks number one, importing around 250 million sq m of tiles per year. Saudi Arabia ranks fourth, importing around 80 million sq m, and the UAE eighth, importing around 30-32 million sq m.
“Our strategy is to be global. We are looking at exporting 40 per cent of our production to markets beyond the GCC,” says Beshara.
The company will be offering a variety of models, designs and colours aimed at different market preferences and requirements.