Qatar 2022 World Cup cement supply needs thought, says UCC

Qatar 2022 World Cup cement supply needs thought, says UCC

Perfect cement storm looms for Qatar construction with limited supply, sources and logistics

Qatari contractor UrbaCon Contracting & Trading (UCC) says the industry needs solutions ahead of Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup work.

Khaled Moustafa Elzein, procurement director at UCC, says: “There is not enough cement in the market, not at all. The boom hasn’t started yet, but I encountered a boom in 2005-2006, and there was a shortage of cement, gravel, heavy equipment and rebar, and we are afraid that will face a similar problem as they start to build up for the FIFA World Cup 2022.”

He says that now is the time to start coming up with the solutions ahead of time, otherwise contractors will be hit by a perfect storm of choked supply and intensified market demand.

Mohamed Moataz AlKhayat, notes: “We are here because we know a lot of suppliers and a lot of subcontractors in the market – we have good relations them and they want to help us because we will recommend them for the next project – they want us to use them.”

“There is a lot of pressure, and there are always problems that are harder to contest with – sometimes there is no cement in the market.”

The obvious solution to future shortage is of course to stock material in advance, but sequestering supply in Qatar presents its own unique set of problems.

Elzein notes: “We need to see how we can stock materials, as most construction supplies will expire: rebar will rust and cement will be damaged by humid pressure within a month – but we are buying our own heavy equipment, so this is one less problem that we will encounter.”

Another issues that UCC highlights is that it only has a single source for rebar and cement, and another  for gravel - two companies both bringing in limited quantities in from Sharjah.

Ramez AlKhayat, MD of UCC, adds: “We are considering one day buying our own barges and shipping the materials from Sharjah by ourselves, and selling some of it. It’s still an idea, but at the end of the day we are facing challenges, and I think we can counter them.”

“We are trying to determine how to encounter the shortages before we face them as a fact. This is facing not just us, but the entire construction industry.”