Qatalum has the annual capacity to produce 625,000 tonnes of primary products, which are marketed through its partner Norsk’s extensive global network.


By Santhosh V Perumal/Business Reporter


Qatar Aluminium (Qatalum) has no plan for now to establish an independent marketing entity, even as it seeks to strengthen its position in Turkish market, which is the gateway to wider European market.
The aluminium company, which is partly owned by Qatar Petroleum, also aims at securing more business from the Middle East region, especially for its products in the automotive industry. The company is devising new strategies this year to deal with growing demand from other sectors.
“At present, we do not have any plans since an agreement (with joint venture partner) is already in place,” Saed al-Marri, sales and marketing manager, told reporters when asked whether Qatalum was open to establishing a marketing arm in the lines of QP recently establishing ‘Muntajat’, a unit for marketing petrochemicals.
Qatalum has the annual capacity to produce 625,000 tonnes of primary products, which are marketed through its partner Norsk’s extensive global network. Qatalum products are used in variety of industries such automotive and construction and engineering.
Qatalum, which exports its products to 350 clients across 45 countries in all five continents, is strengthening its position in the Turkish market. Turkey is the gateway to the European markets, which alone accounted for more than 22% of Qatalum’s exports, followed by the Asian market in the second position.
The markets targeted by Qatalum includes the Mediterranean, Asia and North America with a growing interest in the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council), Middle East and Africa regions.
In May 2012, the Det Norske Veritas International for ISO standards granted Qatalum the ISO certification for aluminium products related to the automotive industry. It was the first Qatari company to obtain ISO/TS 16949 Quality Certificate, which qualifies it to design, develop, produce, install and services for the automotive related products.
With the global certification, Qatalum will be able to supply the global automotive industry with high-quality aluminium products, a move that would enhance the fulfilment of the strategic goal of Qatalum in industrial diversification as part of the Qatar National Vision 2030.
The market usage of Qatalum aluminium products centres on the automotive sector-- about 75% of all foundry alloy production goes into the auto industry. On average, close to 100kg of aluminium foundry alloys are used in passenger cars, of which about one-third is made from primary aluminium, while the remaining from recycle aluminium.
Qatalum said it is ideally located to meet the growing demand for aluminium products based on strong strategic fundamentals.
In view of the growing demand from sectors such as manufacturing and construction; Qatalum has already set up a team to identify the potential in order to diversify its client base.
On localisation of talents, Qatalum said currently, the ratio of Qataris in the total workforce is only 5%, but efforts would be made to take the level to 50% within the next five years.