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Al Mashriq group signs contract
The Al Mashriq Group has signed a contract with Quality
Furniture for supply of ‘Poggenpohl Kitchens’ in a number of new
properties they manage. The agreement would ensure that
properties managed by the Al Mashriq Group will come with a
Poggenpohl kitchen built-in and complete with kitchen appliances
such as microwave, built-in oven, gas hob, refrigerator etc.
Some kitchens would have a dishwasher and washing machine.
Poggenpohl are the world leaders in brand recognition for design
and quality, having supplied kitchens all over the world,
including the Palm and Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai as well as
to celebrities like Demi Moore, Robert De Niro, the Clintons
etc.
PDO Awards Contract
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has awarded an engineering,
construction and procurement (EPC) contract for the Saih
Nihayda gas compression project to South Korea’s GS
Engineering and Construction. The award also includes the
de-bottlenecking of the Saih Nihayda gas processing plant.
“This is an important project which aims to ensure that the
Saih Nihayda field produces gas at an optimum level for a
maximum amount of time,” commented Deputy Managing Director
Abdulla al Lamki. The Saih Nihayda field in Central Oman has
been producing gas since it was commissioned in early 2005.
Gas from the field is treated at the Saih Nihayda processing
plant from where it enters the government gas grid. Based on
current demand patterns, reservoir pressure is expected to
start declining within the next six years. The installation
of the new compression facilities will enable PDO to
maintain pressure for several years. The de-bottlenecking of
the processing plant will increase capacity from the current
level of 20 million cubic metres a day (m3/day) to 25million
m3/day.
Front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the Saih Nihayda
compression and de-bottlenecking project was undertaken by
PDO’s FEED Office. This is the first PDO project designed
internally by the recently-created FEED Office.
Indulge yourself
Britannia, one of India’s largest food companies with
revenue in excess of $700mn, and Oman-based Al Sallan Food
Industries Limited (ASFIC) have re-launched their indulgence
cookie brand, Baker’s Pride, in the $26.7mn worth Omani
biscuit market. With the new launch, Britannia and ASFIC aim
to boost the local economy and expand their share in the
swiftly growing local biscuit market where the current per
capita consumption of biscuits is estimated at 3.2kgs per
annum.
Sohar Power & Desalination Plant marks 1,500 accident-free
days
Suez-Tractebel Operation and Maintenance
Oman (STOMO) has completed 1500 days of operating and
maintaining the Sohar Power & Desalination Plant. However,
the real significance of these 1500 days is that they have
been entirely accident-free. In the Sultanate of Oman, STOMO
(owned by GDF Suez and SOGEX Oman) also operates and
maintains power plants at Manah and Al Rusayl, as well as
the power & desalination plant of Barka II.
In order to commemorate this safety milestone, a ceremony
was held recently. In attendance were William King, General
Manager, STOMO; Shankar Krishnamoorthy, CEO, GDF Suez MENA
(Middle East & North Africa); and Jan Vanoudendycke, COO.
Krishnamoorthy praised the STOMO staff for their remarkable
safety record, as well as for their outstanding performance
in ensuring uninterrupted operation. The exemplary
performance, it was pointed out, is reflected in the high
capacity of the plant, its heat rate, minimal outages, and
high efficiency in day-to-day operations.
Vanoudendycke congratulated the STOMO team on their
exceptional safety record. “This achievement is an important
milestone for the plant,” he said. He added, “It is a result
of each employee taking responsibility for their own health,
and the health and safety of others as well.”
Hadid Majan to be sponsor for Oman Web Awards
Hadid Majan LLC (HML) has signed as category sponsor for
Engineering/Manufacturing at the Oman Web Awards 2009. It
will now compete with its parent company’s website
www.majanoman.com in the corporate category.
HML is one of the leading producers of high yield strength
reinforcement steel bars in the Sultanate. The company’s
facilities are located at Rusayl Industrial Estate and its
steel products are branded as ‘Majan Steel Bars’. The bars
are produced in sizes of 8mm to 25mm conforming to
international specifications.
“We ensure the supply of prime quality pure Omani Steel Bars
to our customers across the Sultanate for constructing
houses, schools, hospitals, sports complexes, commercial
buildings, roads, bridges, dams etc,” a release from the
company stated.
Nawras Awarded Customer Service Provider of the Year
 Nawras has been awarded ‘Customer Service Provider of the
Year, Middle East and Africa’ by CommsMEA. The announcement
was made during the fourth annual CommsMEA Awards 2009
ceremony held in Dubai to honour the achievement of those
companies excelling in the Middle Eastern and African
telecom sector. Nawras emerged as the winner of this
important category with the trophy collected by a team of
enthusiastic Nawras Customer Champions together with Said
Safrar, Customer Service Director and Ross Cormack, CEO.
“We are all delighted and honoured to be named CommsMEA
‘Customer Service Provider of the Year’,” Safrar said after
being presented with the trophy. “This is the result of our
company-wide determination to always stay focused on our
customers as we deliver pleasingly different service to more
than 1.8 million people all over the Sultanate of Oman and
it is a tribute to the concerted efforts of everyone at
Nawras. Once again our customers can see their
communications provider is coming out on top even when
compared with the best operators in the region and beyond.”
OIB organises training course
To enable training and rehabilitation of its staff, Oman
International Bank recently organised a training programme
on the management of human resources and administration
skills, in collaboration with the Arab Academy for Banking
and Financial Sciences, Jordan. Dr Hayel Jacob Fakhouri,
Arab Academy, Jordan, lectured at the programme, which was
attended by 26 staff from the bank’s branches, including
managers, heads of departments and officials from various
regions of the Sultanate.
New remittance service launched
Mustafa Sultan Exchange has launched a new remittance
service called ‘SBI Express Revamp’, enabling faster credit
to customers’ accounts. SBI Express customers will now be
able to get credit of their remittances within 3-4 hours.
The confirmation of credit through SMS to both beneficiary
as well as the remitter is the unique value addition of the
service being offered by Mustafa Sultan Exchange Company.
The SMS confirmation is provided free of cost. The facility
was launched by P K Khosla, chief general manager, State
Bank of India, during his recent visit to Muscat in the
presence of Akber Mustafa Sultan, MD; and Minoo Saher, group
CEO, Mustafa Sultan Enterprises. The service will be
available at all the 12 branches of the company spread
across the Sultanate of Oman. SBI Express-revamp enables
processing of remittances with minimal manual intervention
to ensure greater accuracy and speed.
Omran achieves ISO 14001 accreditation
Omran, the Omani Government’s tourism development and
investment arm, has obtained ISO 14001 accreditation for its
environmental management system, an efficient framework for
continual improvement of environmental performance. The ISO
14001 certificate was received by HE Dr Rajiha Bint Abdul
Ameer Bin Ali, the Minister of Tourism and the chairperson
of Omran in the presence of Wael Bin Ahmed Al Lawati, Omran
CEO and Ahmed Al Sabahi, Omran environmental manager. Omran
is the first tourism company in the Sultanate and one of the
few GCC tourism companies to be awarded this certificate, to
be classified as one of the environmentally responsible
developers in the region.
QUICKLOOKS
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Omanoil
signs exclusive aviation fuel agreement
Oman Oil Marketing Company (omanoil) has signed an
exclusive one year jet fuel contract agreement with
leading international carrier Thai Airways. The
company will supply jet fuel to their entire fleet
of aircrafts landing at the Muscat International
Airport with state-of-the-art technical, logistical
and engineering support. Highly acclaimed by the
international aviation industry as the winner of the
best South East Asian airline by TTG, one of the
most reputable travel trade newspapers in Asia, Thai
Airways has been a prominent international airline
for years with outreach to the most popular and
sought after destinations worldwide including
Muscat. |
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Oman
Air awarded Jane’s Best Aircraft Debt Deal of the year
2009
Jane’s Transport Finance 2009 has recognised Oman Air’s
European Export Credit Agency Financing deal for their
two A330-300 aircraft as the “Best Aircraft Debt deal of
the Year 2009 - Middle East”. The financing for the
above two aircrafts was arranged by Oman Air through
Citibank during September and November 2009. Jim Smith,
editor of Jane Transport Finance stated that this award
is an acknowledgment of one of the innovative and
impressive contracts that have been finalised in a
transparent and objective manner during 2009. |
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IBS awarded contract by Petroleum Development Oman
IBS Software has been awarded a contract by
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) for an IT solution to
optimise passenger management services within its
logistics operations. IBS’ solution will replace the
legacy systems currently in place at PDO, and streamline
and centralise passenger movements booking system within
the organisation, resulting in increased efficiencies.
The implementation of the ePMS system will automate and
manage the movement of people transportation by air and
land. The solution will enable PDO to gain access to a
new generation technology that will provide best in
class transportation management services. |
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AES Oasis enters into agreement
AES Oasis, a joint venture of AES Corp and IDB
Infrastructure Fund, announced that its subsidiary has
entered into an agreement to sell AES Oasis’ interests
in the Barka 456 MW combined cycle gas plant and 91,000
cubic meters per day desalination facility, as well as
the associated technical service companies, to ACWA
Power International, a Saudi Arabian power and
desalination company. The sale agreement culminates a
process which began in the second quarter of 2009. The
transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is
expected to close during the first half of 2010.
Steve Walsh, AES vice president of the Middle East said,
”We’ve had a great experience developing and operating
the Barka facilities in Oman, and are pleased with
Barka’s performance over the last 16 years.” Rauf Diwan,
chairman and CEO of EMP Bahrain, fund manager of IDB
Infrastructure Fund said, “IDB Infrastructure Fund’s
successful track record continues with the divestment of
the Barka asset. We are pleased to have been involved
with Barka, one of the key power plants in Oman, and to
have been able to contribute to the development of the
Omani power sector.” |
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Edutech completes implementation of Integrated Library
System
Edutech, a provider of technology-enabled learning
solutions, has successfully completed an ‘Integrated
Library System’ (ILS) implementation at the Sur College
of Applied Science in Oman using ‘Virtua’ integrated
library system from VTLS (USA) and ‘Elims Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) Security System’ from ST
Logitrack (Singapore).
The automation initiative is expected to revolutionise
the research experience of students and faculty by
providing convenient access to relevant information
resources. This follows an earlier partnership between
Edutech and Oman’s Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE),
which involved the deployment of a centralised learning
platform within six colleges across the Sultanate. |
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Ahli Bank introduces e-banking service
Ahli Bank has launched MyE-Bank, an internet banking
service which can be accessed from anywhere in the
world, at any time and at no extra cost to customers.
The e-banking service will become available to all
eligible account holders of Ahli Bank by logging on to
www.mye-bankingonline.com. The service will enable
customers to carry out day to day transactions including
checking their account balance, online account to
account transfers, paying credit card bills and
requesting cheque books as well as local and
international third party transfers from home or the
office without having to visit a branch. |
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SMEs continue to grow despite downturn
The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)
organised a roundtable to present a report on Small- and
Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) at the Oman Chamber of
Commerce and Industry. The report is the result of a
survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
in August 2009. The EIU surveyed 730 senior executives
from SMEs around the world about their perceptions of
finance conditions. The report suggested that access to
finance among SMEs continued to grow in spite of the
downturn. Despite the current gloomy environment, many
SMEs continue to grow revenue – albeit at a slower pace
than in 2007 or 2008. In all, 54 per cent of executives
expect revenue growth in the next two years; just 15 per
cent expect a decline. Respondents in Asia-Pacific, the
Middle East and Africa are most optimistic about the
future.
The roundtable, which was attended by representatives
from Ministry of Commerce and Industry, ACCA, banks,
SMEs and media discussed the report and status of SMEs
in Oman and ways to remove the obstacles in particular.
Saif bin Ali al Rashdi, Director of Direction and
Guidance at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry
expressed strong commitment to support the SMEs and
remove the obstacles through participation of government
entities, bankers, SMEs and accounting bodies. |
EXECUTIVE MOVEMENTS
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Jayanto
Banerjee, previously head of Bates 141 in Delhi and
General Manager of Euro RSCG Dubai has moved to
Muscat to head Asha Advertising. Asha Advertising
and Marketing Agency is a leading advertising agency
in Muscat, and a part of the Ajit Khimji Group of
Companies. Rishi Khimji, managing director, Asha
Group said, “Our plans for Asha Advertising are
extremely aggressive. We have set ourselves
international benchmarks and aim to continuously
bring a high level of competitive skill sets to
Oman. We constantly strive to bring to our clients
global best practices filtered through local
cultural understanding.” In a career that has
crisscrossed between account management and
strategic planning, some of the clients that
Banerjee has worked on include Reckitt Benckiser,
Danone Water, Air France, Veolia, Jaguar, Peugeot,
Microsoft, Philips, Lacoste, Unilever, Kinetic and
Bajaj two-wheelers, Dabur, HDFC Bank, Hitachi and
Max Bupa health insurance. |
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The
Rezidor Hotel Group has appointed Michael Jacobi as the
new general manager of the Radisson Blu Hotel, Muscat.
Jacobi, a German national, has gained extensive
experience in the hospitality industry. Having started
his career in 1993, Jacobi worked in a number of
positions for Intercontinental in Germany and the USA
before joining Great Southern Hotel, Dublin Airport as
rooms division manager in August 2003. He was later
promoted to deputy general manager of the hotel, a
position he held until December 2005 when he moved to
Doha, Qatar to take the position as resident manager at
the Ramada Plaza Hotel. In 2008, Jacobi joined Rezidor
as executive assistant manager at the Radisson Blu Hotel
Kuwait, where he was responsible for the operations of
this flagship property.Speaking of the appointment,
Marko Hytonen, area vice president, Rezidor Hotel Group
said, “Michael’s proven track record, strong customer
focus, high operational standards and commitment to
people development will serve him well in his new role.” |
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