Ducab – Wired to grow
As UAE’s top cable manufacturer, Ducab is ready to meet the ever-growing demand across the region. An OER report

Ducab, the UAE’s premier cable manufacturer, has been meeting the requirements of discerning clients throughout the Middle East and Far East since it first opened its doors for business in 1979. Although the company’s products are hidden underground and behind walls, they are used in a wide range of demanding scenarios, from low voltage cables for housing cables and street lighting to medium and high voltage for utilities.

A private limited company, jointly owned by Dubai and Abu Dhabi governments in relentless pursuit of quality for both products and services, Ducab has worked for many years to raise quality awareness throughout the UAE.

Ducab’s quality management system was certified to ISO 9001 in 1995 and upgraded in 2002 to the more stringent ISO 9001:2000 standard. Ducab was the first cable company in the Middle East to achieve this distinction. Ducab is also the only cable manufacturer in the Middle East to obtain product type approval of a range of medium and low voltage cables to British Standards by BASEC (The British Approval Service for Cables).

Growth and expansion
Ducab witnessed a robust sales growth of over 50 per cent in 2007 as compared to the previous year. The company also had the opportunity to partner with some of the key developers and contractors within the GCC region. Last year, the company recorded Dh1.1billion in sales within the first six months and surpassed the year-end target of Dh2.2 billion with a significant margin posting a record-breaking turnover of Dh2.4 billion. The two factories in Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi jointly produced in excess of 125,000 cable tonnes.

Alongside setting new records, Ducab has also gone ahead on an expansion drive that has included the acquisition of new companies which included the buyout of Abu Dhabi’s Electrocab in April this year.

As part of its plans to continually push back boundaries in product excellence and innovation, Ducab has, in February this year, launched a new range of fire resistant cables (FR cables), which are designed especially for high-rise buildings, enabling them to survive longer in the event of a fire. Ducab-FR Cables possess many characteristics which make them extraordinarily effective.

Commenting on the certifications that the new cables have acquired, Ashish Chaturvedi, marketing manager of Ducab, said: “Ducab-FR cables are fully approved to BS7846 by the Loss Prevention Certification Board (LPCB), UK. This approval requires more than testing a sample of cable; as the board not only inspects Ducab’s factories to ensure the stringent levels of quality of the materials and manufacturing process, but also carry out regular audits of cable samples for testing in their UK laboratory. Due to the very strict standards applied by LPCB, very few cable manufacturers get full LPCB approval for their products and Ducab is proud to have this level of approval.”

A UAE first
Ducab has recently opened a new copper rod facility, the first of its kind in the UAE with an investment of $45mn. The facility itself is designed to take raw copper cathode and convert it into 8mm diameter electrolytic tough pitch (ETP) copper rod as per BS1977:98 (C100) and ASTM B-49:98, which is the required raw material for the production of electric cables. Currently Ducab purchases its copper rod from various suppliers from around the world, but this new facility means that in future Ducab will be self-sufficient in this strategically important raw material.

The facility comprises continuous melting, casting and rolling and is collectively known as the ‘Contirod process’, as developed by the world-renowned heavy engineering group, SMS Meer of Germany. The technology is actually a marriage of German rolling and control engineering with the very latest metal casting technology from a specialist American company called Hazzelet.

The system used in this facility is a world first and gives very precise real time computer control of each of the 15 burners independently, according to Chaturvedi.

The next stage of the process is to cast the molten copper into a continuous cast bar, which can be subsequently rolled into shape. The casting of the copper bar is a critical element in ensuring the quality of the final product. In the case of the Contirod process, a horizontal casting machine is used as supplied by the specialist engineering company Hazzelet. Horizontal casting results in a bar with the best metallurgical structure. In the case of the Ducab machine, various novel features have been incorporated for the very first time to ensure the most efficient thermal transfer of heat from the bar as it cools from molten copper into a solid bar. The result is a cast bar that is more efficient to produce and has the very best metallurgical structure. This is important when it comes to processing the finished rod into quality conductor as required for production of top quality electrical cable.

The next stage of the process is rolling. The rectangular section of the cast copper bar, measuring 50 mm by 60 mm, is rolled in a series of steps down to an 8 mm diameter rod. The computerised rolling process has independent drives on each pair of rollers thereby ensuring the precise control of the rolling process and also to monitor changes caused by wear on the rollers, which can then be compensated for by making fine adjustments to the roll speed.

Logistically this is a very efficient layout; furthermore, it allows Ducab to get immediate feedback regarding the drawing characteristic of the rod, thereby enabling further refinement of the copper rod process conditions.

Meeting expectations
“The UAE is still Ducab’s largest market, although the company is enjoying considerable growth and success all over the GGC, as well as in markets further afield such as Hong Kong,” says Chaturvedi. “Almost every major construction organisation in the UAE is a client of Ducab, and towards the end of May it has entered into a new contract with Arabtec Holding for the supply of cables for all their current projects within the UAE.

“Expansion looks set to continue too, in both the GCC and wider territories such as North Africa, India, Indonesia and all of this is being fuelled by Ducab’s ability to provide a quality product, unbeatable service, and constant availability of supplies,” he says. The company is looking to grow regionally by opening more manufacturing facilities throughout the GCC. Already, within the UAE, the company is installing new plant and equipment in its Abu Dhabi facility that will increase production by 50 per cent. The project is expected to be finished by the end of 2008.

Ducab’s excellence in product quality, technical expertise and cable leadership is evident from the many awards and recognitions conferred on it by the local, regional and international institutions. Dubai Quality Group, RoSPA, ICD Chairman’s award for Best Economic Value Creation and other Gold Awards are to name a few. But the latest feather in its cap is the Emirates Quality Mark Certification awarded recently by the Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA).

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