ABB to maintain pellet plant in Oman

August 31, 2010 –ABB Oman LLC signed a three-year maintenance agreement for Vale’s state-of-the-art iron ore pellet plant and distribution center in Oman. This maintenance partnership agreement will be a continuation from the current agreement where ABB is responsible for the management and planning of the entire commissioning phase of the project.

Vale is investing $1.3 billion dollars in the new direct reduction iron ore pelletizing plant and distribution center, located in Sohar Industrial Port in Oman. For Vale, it will be the first pelletizing operation outside of Brazil. The initial annual production capacity of the plant will be 9 million tons and once completed the site’s distribution center will have a capacity of handling 40 million tons.

Scheduled for start-up in late 2010, the facility will cater to the Middle East steel industry’s growing demand for iron ore and pellets. The new plant will operate with 720 employees, of which 202 employees will be part of ABB’s maintenance team at the site. ABB will be active in both hiring and providing ongoing development of local Omani Nationals within their work team.

The ABB agreement will cover the development and execution of all maintenance activities at the plant. ABB will manage the entire maintenance crew to ensure that mechanical and electrical maintenance regimes, shutdown management, planning and scheduling, as well as reliability maintenance are completed according to the ABB’s maintenance outsourcing concept.

“By combining our engineering and project management excellence with the ABBs’ maintenance concept during the commissioning period, we will provide higher process and equipment reliability, maximum operating efficiency with reduced life cycle cost for this plant from day one,” said Veli-Matti Reinikkala, Head of ABB’s Process Automation Division. “Our long term working collaboration with Vale and deep process knowledge of their operations were important factors in securing this contract”

Over the years, ABB has delivered numerous automation solutions, services and related support to Vale’s mining operations all over the world. Vale is a global diversified mining company present in more than thirty countries on five continents, and is the world’s largest producer of iron ore and pellets.

ABB Full Service agreements are globally coordinated long-term, performance based agreements in which ABB commits to maintain and improve the production equipment performance and reliability for an entire facility. New Agreements complement more than 150 ABB Full Service relationships already in place with customers in the pulp and paper, metals, mining, oil, gas, petrochemical and other industries.

ABB’s Process Automation division delivers integrated automation solutions for control, plant optimization, and industry-specific application knowledge and services to help process industry customers worldwide meet their critical business needs in the areas of operational profitability, capital productivity, risk management and global responsibility. These industries include oil and gas, power, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, metals, minerals, cement, marine and turbocharging.

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 117,000 people.