Exclusive interview: ABB's Giuseppe Di Marco

ABB engineers working on-site at the Ras Laffan power project in Qatar.
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ABB NEWS FROM IRAQ
ABB won a number of major contracts in Iraq in March. Early in the month ABB won a $60 million contract from Shell Gas Iraq to build a new power plant in southern Iraq. The power plant will be operated by the Basrah Gas Company.

The project includes the rehabilitation of the existing facilities and addition of new facilities. The Khor Al Zubair project is part of an EPC contract to build a power plant with a total capacity of 50MW, which will feed electricity to the facilities of the Basrah Gas Company.

Just as Utilities Middle East was going to press, ABB announced an order from the Ministry of Electricity (MOE) in Iraq to provide another distribution management system. ABB will upgrade the existing control centre. ABB will also supply the communications equipment and RTUs to control and monitor power supplies in this densely populated area of the country.

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“The issue in Iraq is not actually that it’s a difficult environment to do business, its more the issue of security,” explains Di Marco.

“That’s what increases the cost of doing business there significantly. For the big EPC projects we team up with local partners, which means the majority of the installation is done locally by our local partners. In that way we are developing local content, training Iraqi’s and that is the key to success there,” he adds.

The driving segment in Iraq at the moment is gas and oil, in that order, says Di Marco. “There is a lot going on in power generation too, but this is principally on and around the upstream project sites. The ambitious growth plans the oil ministry means you need local partners and that is a strategy which is working well for us so far.”

Giuseppe Di Marco
Role: CEO for ABB in United Arab Emirates and Cluster Manager for ABB in Southern Gulf and Pakistan

Experience: An Italian citizen, Di Marco has been with ABB for almost the past 30 years. Di Marco started his career at ABB in Iraq and since then has held various high-profile positions across the company, including region manager in Tanzania, Mozambique and Botswana, Power Systems Manager in Brazil, Switzerland and Italy.

Most recently he was regional division manager for Process Automation for ABB in Mediterranean region. Since March 1, 2012 Di Marco is CEO for ABB in United Arab Emirates and cluster manager for ABB in Southern Gulf and Pakistan.