Established in 1993, Inoxium Tubi Pipes Industry LLC started its journey from ‘Mideast Metals FZCO’, one of GCC’s most prominent stainless steel stockholder, service center and stainless steel tube mill providing stainless steel to various industries in the region. Mideast Metals FZCO’s stock holds the entire range of stainless steel products like stainless steel sheets/plates, coils, tubes, pipes, round bars and other stainless steel products available in different grades and sizes to meet the local industrial demands as well as the entire of the GCC. In a recent conversation with Tube and Pipe India magazine, Mr. Khurram Khawaja, Executive Director, Inoxium Tubi Pipes Industry LLC discussed the company’s business journey, manufacturing capabilities, new and upcoming developments, product portfolio and business roadmap.
Tube & Pipe India: Could you please give us a brief outline of the business journey of your company along with its crucial milestones?
Khurram Khawaja: In 1993, Mr. Waqas Khawaja and I established Mideast Metals in Fujairah Free Zone for re-export business to Asian countries, starting out as stockists. Initially we produced mainly flat products, gradually adding long products to our production. By the year 2000, the local demand for stainless steel prompted local sales in the UAE. To facilitate further storage and effective distribution, another warehouse was opened in JAFZA in 2008. In 2012, we established a factory in JAFZA with state of the art processing machines from USA and Italy, and set up our service center in Jebel Ali. In 2022, we established our tube mill, Inoxium Tubi and started production of stainless steel pipes and tubes in a factory in Umm Al Quwain. Today we have a local UAE clientele of more than thousand clients, starting from kitchen equipment manufacturers, builders, fabricators to Interior designers and exporting to more than 40 countries worldwide SS sheets and targeting even more countries for sale of SS tubes and pipes.
TPI: Could you cast some light on the manufacturing capabilities and production capacity at your facility?
KK: We have the latest machinery from the US available at our service center. The machinery is called a precision blanking line along with a stretcher level. The first ever stainless steel stretcher leveler in Asia which can process coils up to 8mm thickness. For the population of more than 4 billion across 50 countries, there is only one stretcher leveler giving laser flat sheets which stay flat even after laser cutting, notching, punching, or subsequent shearing operations. With the increased demand of our No.4, hairline sheets, we also established a coil to coil polishing line and a suit to suit polishing line in 2016, both sourced from Italy. Additionally, we are also making ornamental tubes as well as industrial tubes up to 8 inches, in Tumbe. For our service center, our production capacity is about 2,000 tons per month. For tubes, it is 1,500 tons per month, and will grow to 2,000 tons per month in July.
TPI: Tell us about your product portfolio along with its applications, and the industries served.
KK: We at Inoxium Tubi are manufacturing stainless steel ornamental and industrial tubes and pipes in various sizes and shapes. We produce stainless steel industrial pipes, utilized in instrumentation, automobiles, heat exchanger, surface condensers, digesters, fluid piping, LP/HP heaters and evaporators.
Our stainless steel ornamental tubes have applications in boat, rails and ladders, automotive step bars and grille guards, washroom grab bars, architecture, swimming pool rails, ovens, refrigerators, restaurant equipment, medical equipment, exercise equipment, rain showers, handrail, stair rail, industrial kitchen furniture, ovens and refrigerators. Our stretcher level sheets are the main product which stand out from the rest of the competitors. Industries we cater to include industrial kitchen equipment factories, medical equipment factories, ship building, chemical processing, sugar mills, heat exchangers, pharmaceutical factories, textile machinery, fertilizers, dairy and food processing, power plants, construction, modern architecture, oil and gas processing, water treatment facilities, desalination, synthetic fibers, pulp and paper, breweries, refinery and petrochemicals and energy industries.
TPI: What are the recent and upcoming developments at your company?
KK: We have recently set up a new factory last year, entailing a large investment, which we will soon consolidate on. Inoxium’s pipes and tubes also have esteemed certifications. Our pipes are set to be covered under the API 5LC petroleum certification for US standards, which will be covered by the end of this year. Moreover, we also have a solar project under review for both our factories. Through the solar project, we plan to reduce our electricity consumption and try to convert to solar.
TPI: Kindly share your outlook on the tube and pipe industry. What is your technology and business roadmap for the market?
KK: For flat products, we have been in the market for the last 30 years in the UAE, and had a presence before that in Pakistan as well. Tube and pipe is a good and flourishing industry, with a worldwide demand especially in the segment of industrial pipes, where there is a good demand worldwide. We already have the latest machine wheels, from the 2002 model for cubes, which has a lot of automation. Even the new wheels we are adding are also semi-automatic to fully automatic. And to relate that to the ERP, we have SAC, one of the most stable and advanced systems.
