Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member of the UAE and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, inaugurates the Gulf RAK Oil lubricant manufacturing plant at RAK Maritime City, in the presence of Sheikh Nahayan bin Mubarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, UAE, and senior officials of Hinduja Group.

Gulf RAK Oil LLC, a state-of-the-art lubricant manufacturing plant and grease processing facility jointly set up by the government of Ras Al Khaimah and Gulf Oil International, the energy wing of Hinduja Group, was commissioned Wednesday by Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member of the UAE and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, in the presence of Sheikh Nahayan bin Mubarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, UAE.



The launch of Gulf RAK Oil was also attended by Gopichand P Hinduja, Co-Chairman, Hinduja Group of Companies, M. K. Lokesh, Ambassador of India to the UAE, and senior officials of the government of Ras Al Khaimah and the Hinduja Group.



Gulf RAK Oil has been set up as a manufacturing facility for lubricants and greases in Maritime City, Ras Al Khaimah. The joint venture enjoys a LLC status being a Government of Ras Al Khaimah company.



Commenting on the launch of Gulf RAK Oil LLC, Frank Rutten, Vice-President International of Gulf Oil, said: “The plant is strategically located to enjoy easy accessibility as well as supportive trading policies which makes it viable for our products to be available at much more economical rates to the end user across the GCC and MENA region. RAK Maritime City offers an extremely productive ground for investment owing to its strategic location and foray into the IDO owned enterprises and investors in RAK.”



“As a major producer of lubricants in the emirate, Gulf RAK has been set up with a state-of-the-art manufacturing and storage plant. An ambitious expansion plan has already been charted out for the plant to ensure a market share of at least 6 to 8 per cent in the next four years, which is expected to reflect in the rolling plan with Gulf RAK Oil’s existing customers, GCC customers of GOMEL Jebel Ali and new customers,” he said.



The present blending capacity of the plant on three shift basis is 30,000 MTPA of lubricants. Proposed expansion plans of the plant with new machineries and equipment will see an increased blending capacity of 44,000 MTPA. The facility has the present bulk storage capacity of approximately 7000 MT for base oils and 2000 MT of finished products.



It is estimated that the lubricant market in the GCC area is about 1.5 million tons and growing at around 8 per cent. As a region, it is the second biggest regional markets in the world, after Asia Pacific.



Jim Stewart, CEO and Board Member of Investment and Development Office (IDO) of Ras Al Khaimah, said: “We are very pleased to partner with Gulf Oil to launch this manufacturing facility for lubricants and grease in the emirate IDO of the Government of RAK has a very clear vision of continuous development and growth through investments in new and existing businesses.



We are focused on developing the infrastructure to promote investments in the emirate and collaboration with partners who are specialists with a proven track record of success.”



Spanning across an area of over 13 acres, the production facility at Gulf RAK provides for blending, filling and storage of finished products. The plant has also been set up with a small pack filling line, drum decanting unit for blending, drum and bulk filling facilities. The plant holds the capacity to fill small pack up to 6,000 MTPA in addition to grease production and filling of 10,000 MTPA.



Strategically located by the side of Saqr Port Canal, the facility has a direct pipeline access from the ship to company’s base oil storage tanks, leading to the reduction of transportation hassles of bulk cargoes such as tank rentals and contamination. — SG