AVEVA has said it sees great growth potential in the Middle East region as IT solution adoption in the downstream sector continues to rise
The firm's Dubai-based COO and head of enterprise solutions, Derek Middlemas, spoke to Oil Review Middle East about the reasons behind moving the company's global Enterprise Solutions operations to Dubai. He was joined by Naji Atallah, regional manager Middle East AVEVA, who outlined AVEVA's main Middle East projects and growth plans.
Middlemas explained that the Middle East remained an important region for the engineering and design software solutions company, and added that in order to build up its base in the region it was essential to establish a hub in Dubai.
"Dubai is a fantastic location and a great hub to run our global business line for the company," he explained.
AVEVA's biggest market in the region is the UAE and the company has recently increased its focus on the Saudi Arabian market. To this effect, it is now recruiting for its office in Al Khobar in the Eastern Province, with Atallah underlining the point by stating that the the company's "largest growth opportunities now lie within Saudi Arabia".
The importance of Saudi Arabia was seen earlier in the year when Saudi Aramco Total Refinery and Petrochemical Company (SATORP) selected AVEVA NET Portal and AVEVA Data & Document to provide a core digital information hub and an engineering document management solution.
Middlemas observed, "The SATORP deal was a great win for us in the Middle East and we are performing well on it. It is going well and we think it will act as a very good reference for us in the future."
AVEVA has noted that the business environment is changing with a higher adoption of IT solution software in the downstream industry, which traditionally lagged behind upstream.
"We are seeing that the drive to spend on software is faster in the Middle East region and emerging markets," he added.
AVEVA has a greater opportunity to work directly with the owners in the region and, importantly, these owners have a real vision of how they want to look after their assets across the life cycle of a project.
Atallah provided the example of the UAE's ADMA-OPCO, an owner who is currently building up some of its existing assets. Other than the authoring applications, Aveva is now providing ADMA-OPCO with an Engineering Information Management System for this project. The AVEVA Enterprise is currently in the implementation stage.
In October this year, AVEVA launched its new premium plant design solution AVEVA Everything3D. The whole strategy behind the new product is that it supports lean practices to better tie engineering and design to fabrication and construction. AVEVA Everything3D is backward compatible with AVEVA’s current PDMS.
"It has been very well received and its first production release will be available in December. We see a lot of potential for this product in the region," Middlemas stated.
