Marble Stone brings sophistication to Qatari stonework

Marble Stone brings sophistication to Qatari stonework

Qatar’s UrbaCon Contracting &Trading rises to the demand for quality custom marble

Marble Stone, a finishings producer and subsidiary of UrbaCon Contracting &Trading (UCC), is leading the Qatari market forward in delivering the most advanced marble cutting and installing technologies to the country, addressing the high demand for custom stonework.

Sourcing its raw natural marble from various locations, but mainly in Italy, Spain, Turkey and Egypt, Marble Stone specialises in stone cutting using computer-controlled machinery operated by a skilled labour force of designers and stone technicians.

Wasel Kannout, Business Units Director at UCC, details: “For marble we have a ‘6D’ milling machine  for making columns and carving work and we have five high-powered water jet machines that have the capacity to carve 1,000m² of marble in a month.”

Mohamed Moataz AlKhayat, CEO of UCC, says: “Rather than heading towards mass-production, we are focusing on the most technical and specialist aspect of stonework, emphasising the continuous development of our staff’s expertise and our techniques.”

Blending art and technology, 85% of the work is performed by the manually-operated or computerised machines, while 15% of the work is carried out by hand, particularly during the installation, but including a small proportion of hand carving work.

Ramez AlKhayat, MD of UCC, adds: “For marble you need a large space as a yard, so we have around 10,000m², with 2,000m² of it covered and the remainder of it as a yard. Between the factory and the installation operations we have around 500 labourers.”

“We are not expanding our activities to cover everything, but specialising in custom works.”

Marble Stones has joinery contracts on its books worth almost $20 million, and based on the number of projects it is now tendering, it expects to book a further $10 million by end 2013.