John Crane has secured a three-year Managed Reliability Programme with a major phosphate mining and fertiliser producer in Saudi Arabia. The agreement aims to improve equipment reliability across the customer’s remote operations and reduce unplanned disruptions.
John Crane, a global provider of flow-control technologies and rotating equipment solutions, is part of Smiths Group plc. Under the agreement, the company will provide onsite technical expertise, maintenance support and training to help the customer improve equipment performance across its mining and processing operations.
The programme is designed to keep equipment operational for longer between failures while providing greater control over maintenance costs. Dedicated onsite technical and service teams will work alongside the customer’s maintenance staff to identify reliability issues, implement recommendations and address recurring mechanical seal problems.
The agreement also includes a fixed fee for mechanical seal overhaul services over the three-year period. This will give the customer greater visibility of maintenance costs and support more predictable budgeting and planning.
As part of the programme, John Crane will establish an onsite workshop to bring mechanical seal maintenance capabilities closer to the customer’s remote facilities. Training and knowledge transfer will also help strengthen the technical skills of the customer’s maintenance teams, enabling them to identify problems and implement practical reliability improvements.
Hani Attia, General Manager for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain at John Crane, said equipment reliability is essential to keeping the customer’s mining and processing operations running. He added that dedicated onsite expertise would help maintenance teams address issues earlier and reduce recurring failures.
Attia also highlighted the role of fixed-fee maintenance services in improving expenditure planning, while training would help build the customer’s in-house maintenance capabilities.
Expanding Reliability Services in Saudi Arabia
The agreement follows equipment surveys conducted to assess the installed equipment base and identify maintenance requirements.
For John Crane, the contract marks an expansion of its reliability services into the mining sector. It also provides an opportunity to strengthen its relationship with the customer, with the potential to extend the programme to other mining operations in Saudi Arabia under the strategic partnership agreement.
