January 7, 2016

Interview with Ala Mikdadi, General Manager at Global Transformers and Switchgears FZCO, Dubai – UAE

Ghantoot Group Global Transformers was established in 2004 as a subsidiary of a large group of companies – Ghantoot Group – which is a family-owned...

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Ghantoot Group

Global Transformers was established in 2004 as a subsidiary of a large group of companies – Ghantoot Group – which is a family-owned business founded in the late 1970s and headquartered in Abu Dhabi. The Group has successfully expanded and diversified its business, reaching an annual turnover of about USD 1.2 billion, with more than 10,000 employees and over 35 companies across diversified sectors – contracting, construction, manufacturing, trading, and tourism. With the aid of its sister companies from Ghantoot Electrical Division, as well as Utico, Global Transformers is able to support the power industry from generation through transmission to distribution. Ghantoot Electrical Division is specialized in electrical contracting, including overhead lines, underground cabling, substations and large infrastructure projects, while Utico is a company specialized in power generation and water treatment. They use our transformers in turnkey projects, in both transmission and distribution networks.

Global Transformers

Global Transformers employs over 120 people, with the annual turnover exceeding USD 20 million, 70% of which comes from the UAE and 30% from the region. Our target region is MENA (Middle East and North Africa), particularly GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and Iran in case the economic sanctions are lifted. We used to have good records on the Iranian market before the sanctions were imposed.

When we started in 2004 we had technical collaboration with a European transformer OEM. Our technicians and engineers have acquired all the knowledge and developed into experts now who know the local region and customers’ requirements. R&D is part of our design department since the requirements for transformers are always driven by customers. We also have to comply with all standards, both local and international. Transformer industry is by nature a tailor-made industry as transformers are tailor-made products which we need to design and manufacture according to the requirements of each client, on a regional level.

Today, we are able to take care of the entire transformer manufacturing process from the design stage to the final product, and support the erection, installation and commissioning stages, based on the client’s needs and requirements, for both power and distribution transformers starting with the capacity of 100 kVA up to 100 MVA. We have already reached a milestone and manufactured our first 132 kV transformer of the capacity 63 MVA, which was considered the largest in the region in 2008. The manufacturing capacity is up to 5,000 distribution transformers and up to 1,000 power transformers. Supplying both transmission and distribution networks gives us an opportunity to balance the load in the factory.

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