Munir Rafie, vice president, materials supply, Saudi Aramco, opened the new Mechanical Seal Manufacturing Plant set up by Abahsain and Flowserve to replace and upgrade their existing facility operating in Saudi Arabia since 1994. Shaukat Sheikh, group director, Abahsain, said: “This is the second time in as many years, that I stand before you introducing the visible commitment that Abahsain, along with their long standing partner Flowserve, are making to our customers, especially in Saudi Arabia and to a degree to the rest of the region.” Two years ago, he said, he had opened a state-of-the-art valve manufacturing facility, across the road from here, equipped with training and independent warehousing facilities, to ensure that “our joint footprint stands at a location close to our customer base:. The director also said: “Abahsain’s goal is to interweave this center of excellence to our existing QRC in Yanbu, as also to newer facilities planned in Jubail and Jazan in the very near future.” On Saudization, he said: “The joint venture’s current personnel statistics indicated that Saudi engineers constituted up to 70 percent of the total engineering human resource base, employed by this facility. For an engineering company of this type in Saudi Arabia, at this time in its history, this is an extraordinarily high proportion of technically qualified and specialized use of local human resources and thus one of their stellar achievements.” Abahsain & Flowserve have a 40 plus year history of partnership and a track record of their commitment to the customers. Source: ArabNews