QPMC Starts Gabbro Sales in Mesaieed and Lusail

Doha, August 31 (QNA) - Qatar Primary Materials Company (QPMC) has started selling gabbro material in Mesaieed and Lusail to contractors from public and private sectors, the company said Monday. QPMC has also increased its Gabbro Berth Terminal Capacity to 58 million tonnes per annum at Gabbro while completing its largest flagship project. Full operations will start from the first quarter of 2016. The company said its supply of gabbro and limestone is to ensure stability of primary infrastructure materials in the local market. QPMC recently signed an agreement supply Public Works Authority (Ashghal) with 91 million tonnes of gabbro and limestone over the next five years. With the demand for aggregate for Qatar's infrastructure development growing, QPMC is increasing the capacity of the bulk materials with Gabbro Berth Terminal in Mesaieed Port, which will have an unloading capacity of 34 million tonnes a year by 2016 through conveyor stacker system, the company said. QPMC's second and newly added jetty in Lusail City is fully operating. It will supply 3 million tonnes of construction material per annum to spur construction work in the new city. Lusail jettys earlier capacity was around 500 tonnes per hour, after expansion, the handling and unloading capacity of the port has gone up to 1,000 tonnes per hour. The company has allocated 250,000 square meters of temporary unloading and storage area near Lusail jetty to receive and store the next gabbro consignment to Qatar from tomorrow. QPMC has also set up two floating jetties at Ras Laffan to supply primary materials. The jetties comprise two floating docks each that accommodate four barges with an additional dock that can accommodate an extra marpol jetty (up to 5 barges) with a handling capacity of 12,000 tonnes each. The ports total intake capacity will be nine tonnes a year and it operates 24 hours with a gabbro storage area of 1,800,000 square meters. QPMC's conveyor belt facility in Mesaieed is one of the largest in the Middle East, the first of its kind in the region. The company expects to complete conveyor belts this year. Conveyor belts will be set up in Mesaieed in the first quarter of 2016. The unloading and storage facility for the project in Mesaieed has an area of 1,000,000 square meters. QPMC's Cement Silo plant, once operational in the first quarter of 2016, will be able to load 1,000 tonnes of cement per hour and is designed to discharge 1.8 million tonnes of cement per year into the 12 silos (circular structure for storing bulk materials) with the total storage capacity of 60,000 cubic metres. Set up in 2006 on Qatar Government's mandate, QPMC boosts the efficiency of port facilities used to import construction materials, primarily aggregates like limestone, gabbro, sand and other free-flowing bulk construction materials. (QNA)