Oil & Gas Trade Mission to Saudi Arabia/UAE
Saudi Arabia/UAE
18 - 25 April
In April, an EIC UK Trade Delegation led by EIC’s Middle East Managing Director Terry Willis, visited Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. The delegation comprised predominantly of companies who were new to the market plus one that already had established operating offices in both locations. The huge benefit of participating in Trade Missions is that the delegates are able to meet executives who they would have difficulty in seeing during their normal course of business.
In Saudi Arabia, the visit was able to coincide with an initiative agreed between the British Trade Office and the local Chamber of Commerce entitled “Saudi British Business Week” and we were one of three delegations taking part with the others coming from the Middle East Association and Scottish Development International. After a full trade briefing provided by Neil Wilson and his team from the BTO, the delegation went off to Saudi Aramco where we received a full briefing from Materials Supply, Consulting Services Division and Local Enterprise Development. Considering that their spend over the next 3 years is expected to be in excess of $50 billion, this meeting was invaluable.
The following day was taken up with a forum arranged by the Chamber of Commerce where local companies had the opportunity to meet delegates on a one to one basis and explore the possibility of business opportunities and establishing new relationships, then in the evening, a celebration of the Queen’s Birthday was arranged where a significant number of prominent members of the local community were present.
The next day was spent in Jubail where the delegation was received by representatives from the Royal Commission of Yanbu and Jubail followed by a group session with SABIC. On both occasions, a very detailed briefing of future plans plus procurement policies were delivered to a very receptive audience. Following this, it was a quick return to Al-Khobar where Foster Wheeler provided some background into their activities in the Kingdom, which at the time were very substantial. Finally, the visit to Saudi was concluded in the evening when a reception was held for invited guests to meet the delegates on a one to one basis.
From Saudi Arabia, it was then on to Abu Dhabi where our first appointment was with Mott MacDonald. This proved to be one of the most successful meetings of the Mission when individual disciplined engineers were on hand to discuss in some technical detail, the attributes of each delegate’s product that was on offer.
The following day saw Gordon Brown and his team from the Commercial Section of the British Embassy was able to deliver a very good market briefing with the aid of some local businessmen who were able to share their experience and knowledge of doing successful business in this thriving market. A representative from his team also accompanied the delegation on some of their calls around the town.
Firstly, it was on to ADNOC where we met with senior representatives from four operating divisions of the organisation after which they gained a valuable regional overview from BP, who run all their regional assets from their Abu Dhabi office. Finally, a very detailed picture of the role that is filled by the local trading fraternity was provided by the management of GASOS. Putting all these calls together, the agenda was able to cover a very wide spectrum of doing business in the expanding oil & gas sectors of Abu Dhabi.
Immediate reaction from the visit was extremely positive. One delegate stated that the visit confirmed the need to have an established base here and was therefore staying on for an extra working week in order to lay the foundations for that expansion. Other’s managed to have private meetings outside the main delegate programme which resulted in every company without exception, stating that they intend to return very shortly and will be rapidly setting up agreements with local companies.
Besides hosting industry events in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the EIC is now looking forward to bringing the UK group to ADIPEC which takes place at the new Exhibition Centre in Abu Dhabi. At the 2006, EIC won an award for the Best National Pavilion and they fully intend to do everything possible to repeat this success later on this year. For full details of this and all the other events that are arranged by the EIC, a visit to our web site at www.the-eic.com is highly recommended.
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