The company will continue to expand its capabilities and work closer to its customers to enable it to be more responsive to their needs, and invest in resources to better deliver capital projects that require compressed schedules

Emerson, a diversified global manufacturing company that provides innovative solutions to customers, continues to grow both organically and through strategic acquisitions of new businesses.

"This year, we are repositioning our portfolio to focus on two core business platforms: Automation Solutions and Commercial and Residential Solutions. This repositioning will enable us to invest in stronger, faster-growth markets and move toward a broader solutions-oriented business model. We are doing this because we are seeing a growing demand for complete solutions-based and information-based technologies, systems and services," says Dave Tredinnick, president, Emerson Process Management, Middle East and Africa.

"We will continue to increase our portfolio of solutions and develop our organisation to support our customers’ needs," he says.

Just last month, Emerson announced the planned acquisitions of the Valves and Controls business of Pentair for $3.15 billion. This acquisition will help to maintain Emerson’s leadership position in the area of control, isolation, pressure relief valves and actuation.

Emerson will continue to expand its capabilities and work closer to its customers to enable it to be more responsive to their needs, and invest in resources to better deliver capital projects that require compressed schedules and reduce overall capital expenditure, he says.

"Our goal is to help bring our customers to top quartile performance, to be within the top 25 per cent of their peers in areas like capital construction projects, operational reliability and energy management. By applying automation, data analysis, and industry best practices, our customers will be able to make sure that their projects are executed on-time and on-budget, their maintenance programmes are predictive and proactive instead of reactive, and their energy strategies ensure reduced waste and improved efficiency," he explains.

Tredinnick says Emerson has just opened its Solutions Centre and a new Customer Education Centre on the Dubai campus. This Solutions Centre has advanced automation and conferencing resources to visualise customers’ challenges and facilitate holistic approaches for solutions development.

The adjoining Education Centre provides in-depth, hands-on learning and development with over 400 courses across the automation discipline to help the company’s customers in the region maintain a competent and highly-skilled workforce. Emerson’s Jebel Ali Free Zone campus is over 500,000 sq ft, consisting of manufacturing, engineering, our leadership team and the aforementioned capabilities.

"We will also be opening a new facility in Al Majal Business Park in Basrah, Iraq, which moves us closer to our customer base. This facility will give us access to workshops and industrial space to support our drive for local value addition and also a well-designed education centre," he says.

Emerson’s Dubai campus

In June 2017, Emerson will open the Emerson Dhahran Techno Valley facility in Saudi Arabia. This facility will be the company’s Saudi Arabia headquarters and will help support its collaborative solution development work with King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals and key business partners such as Saudi Aramco and Sabic.

"We are viewed by our customers as a trusted partner that provides end-to-end solutions to help them complete their oil and Gas projects on time and on budget, improving their cash flow," he says.

Emerson’s technology solutions measure, analyse, control, automate and improve process related operations. These cover areas such as reservoir management, remote operations of oilfields, well monitoring, separation, custody transfer, artificial lift, enhanced oil recovery, flow metering, compression, downhole monitoring, drilling support and integrity management. These come with a comprehensive array of capabilities and support starting from consulting to engineering and design, to project execution, start-up and commissioning, and then on to maintenance, reliability services, training, and other lifecycle services.

Emerson has a large network of locations in the Middle East and have invested heavily in developing in local manufacturing capabilities to support all segments of the oil and gas value chain. "We serve operators and engineering contractors from offshore and onshore exploration and production, through hydrocarbon processing and transmission, to terminal and tank farm management," says Tredinnick.

The company’s manufacturing facilities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as service centres across the GCC and Africa are geared to support its customers, in terms of speed and efficiency. "We have developed not only the facilities to handle large mega complex projects locally, but also the organisation to support everything from pre-Feed, detailed engineering, through commissioning and ongoing lifecycle support. In fact we can meet local content requirements in virtually every country within the world area, either through our direct operations or in conjunction with our local partners," he says.

Emerson’s oil and gas customers in the region continue to invest in order to either increase or sustain their production rates. "We still see significant project activity as well as brown field capital spending. With our focus on life cycle services we also are engaged in many shutdowns, turnarounds and outages, helping our customers improve their efficiency, reliability and safety."

Saudi Arabia, for example hit a record 10.67 million barrels a day in July 2016, according to official reports and they continue to invest in key areas to increase gas production and maintain their crude production rates. In Nigeria, where Emerson works with both state oil companies, as well as international oil companies, producers are determined to improve their exports. It is a similar story in Iraq where Emerson has been engaged with all of the operators to rehabilitate existing operations and also build new facilities to help the country meet their goals, he points out.

Referring to the market conditions, he says the market is still volatile and inventory levels are still high, but many oil and gas executives are cautiously optimistic that a rebalancing will be happening soon. "Most of us have been through these cycles previously, we expect to see a recovery in the second half of 2017," he expressed hope.

Emerson, which has 205 manufacturing locations and 111,000 employees working in more than 150 countries, has been serving the Middle East region for well over 30 years through its direct presence and local business partners. "In fact I lived in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s working with Emerson to support our business in the Eastern Province."

Emerson has established its Jafza campus in 2008, and since that time have added two additional manufacturing facilities to the campus to meet its customers’ needs.

"The Emerson Jafza campus is our hub for the world area, with manufacturing, engineering and project execution and supports the local manufacturing that we have established with our local business partner in Jubail Saudi Arabia. Additionally, we have a comprehensive network of facilities in Abu Dhabi, Basra, Doha, Khobar, Kuwait, Manama, Lagos, Algiers, Casablanca, and Johannesburg," he says.

These facilities support Emerson’s services business and allow it to reach its customers within a few hours. The company has developed a very comprehensive support organisation that is truly local to its customers.