After their 2017 plant outage, Oman's first aluminium smelter Sohar Aluminium is back in full operation having followed their existing set of management processes and procedures to get there. To continue on this trajectory of improvement and infuse fresh thoughts and processes into their existing operations, they decided to look at smelters in the GCC with similar management techniques in the functional areas of Central Maintenance and asset management, and found Qatalum to be the ideal partner for their study, comparison and benchmarking.
Sohar Aluminium's two-day visit to the Qatalum plant included discussions over their respective areas including approaches to asset management; mobile equipment; condition monitoring; UPS maintenance; maintenance of repairable items, fire and gas systems, HVAC systems, as well as operation and maintenance of compresses air systems. Besides discourses and learning shared by both parties, information on the recent Gulf Aluminium Council (GAC) Maintenance Committee meeting that was held recently in Dubai was also shared with Qatalum.
"This was an excellent opportunity to share Maintenance information amongst the aluminium smelters in the GCC region and Sohar Aluminium specifically," said Daniel Pieter Els, Central Maintenance Manager. "Opportunities like this will allow Qatalum to be more efficient in our maintenance processes and procedures," he added.
