Middle East

The founder and chairman of the Hashoo Group Sadruddin Hashwani speaks to John O’Hanlon about the purchase of Shell’s LPG marketing assets in Pakistan and the continuing growth of Orient Petroleum International Inc (OPII).

Olayan Descon is continuing to expand its industrial construction and maintenance capabilities to support the industrialisation of Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Naveed talks to Gay Sutton about the latest move: to provide end-to-end engineering, procurement and construction services.

French industrial gases company Air Liquide has said it will invest $450 million in two global-scale hydrogen production units to supply Saudi Aramco with hydrogen for its planned Yanbu refinery.

Saudi Aramco's refinery will be located in Yanbu Industrial City, on the west coast of the kingdom. The new incorporated Red Sea Refining Company will process 400,000 barrels of heavy crude per day when the facility is completed in 2014.

The two hydrogen production units will have a total production capacity of 262 million cubic feet per day.

When Dubai dramatically fell victim to the global economic recession, the construction industry was hit harder than most. Electromechanical construction specialist Trans Gulf has come through it remarkably unscathed. General manager Sekhar Reddy explains to Gay Sutton how the company’s partnership policy and pragmatic approach to growth have stood it in good stead.

The United Arab Emirates has announced it is banning BlackBerry messaging, email and internet use.

The government claims the ban is due to security concerns because encrypted data sent on the devices is sent abroad, where it cannot be monitored for illegal activity. It says it is cracking down solely on the BlackBerry because it is the only smartphone that automatically sends users' data to servers overseas.

Analysts say this makes BlackBerry messages tougher to monitor than ones sent through domestic servers that authorities can access more easily.

Saudi Arabia has received bids from six groups hoping to build four stations along a 450 kilometre high-speed railway line in the country.

Firms involved in the bidding include the German transport group Deutsche Bahn, Italy’s Astaldi, the UK’s WS Atkins,France’s Alstom, Austria’s Strabag, and Singapore-based ST Engineering Ltd.

Search giant Google has agreed to buy ITA Software Inc. for $700 million, giving it a foothold in the fast-growing online travel industry.

 Google’s offer beat that of rivals Microsoft and other travel and search related companies who were hoping to prevent Google from taking over ITA.