Casablanca-based Delattre-Levivier Maroc (DLM) provides a vast array of services and activities including construction, fabrication and erection of steel structures, the manufacture of all types of boilerplate items, steel framing units, pressure vessels, sheet metal, heavy piping and steel framework accessories.

DLM's extensive range of services cater for a wide spectrum of applications in markets including oil and gas, infrastructure and public works, mining and chemicals, energy, cement and more besides. 

“The company employs 1400 workers and has four sites of production,” Mr Kouider informs. “Our turnover in 2008 was $75 million and we have so far completed over 2 million hours of labour production.”

Major milestones

DLM was established in Morocco in 1950 by Andre Levivier as a subsidiary of Delattre Levivier France. “After many changes in the head office in France, DLM became independent in 1988,” Mr Kouider tells us. In 1996, the company's high standard of service and fabrication was recognised by internationally-renowned company OCP – the world's biggest exporter of phosphates. “DLM was awarded first prize for quality, out of 3000 companies and suppliers,” informs Mr Kouider. 

“The company's first subsidiary, Metal Assistance, was established in 1998 and was dedicated to metallic construction work. And DGM – another subsidiary, specialising in mechanical maintenance – was set up two years later,” he continues. As the company grew, and in order to help co-ordinate all of the resources, information and activities needed to complete processes such as accounting, DLM installed its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in 2003. 

“In 2004, the company received its ISO 9001 quality certification,” informs Mr Kouider, “and in 2006 we embarked upon our first export activities with projects in Senegal, Burkina Faso and Gabon. In 2007 we achieved the certification for ASME – the American Standard for Pressure Vessels – which means that we are now allowed to ASME-stamp these products.”

Last year, the company achieved two major milestones, as Mr Kouider points out: “We were first introduced onto the Casablanca stock exchange and we also launched a new workshop dedicated to the fabrication of wind towers.” 

Valuable relationships 

Due to the size of the projects that the company are often involved in realising, it is quite typical for DLM to work in partnership with other firms – in terms of both erection and fabrication activities. 

“The partnerships that we typically embark upon are generally with those companies that have some knowledge of a particular specialist process,” informs Mr Kouider. 

“Because DLM itself specialises in steel construction, in piping and erection, we try to fit this with other companies with experience in the field of chemistry, for example,” he explains. “We have carried out a lot of partnerships on projects with the German company Thyssenkrupp, the American company Monsanto and the Spanish company Versher. So we have a lot of partners, especially on the engineering and process work side of things.

The benefit of collaborating with other internationally-renowned companies, Mr Kouider advises, is the sharing of experience and skills that necessarily takes place as a result of these valuable relationships: “We are happy to learn from our partners and also to feed our expertise back to them.”

Technologically-advanced workshops

There are two sides to the company,” explains Mr Kouider, “the functional side and the operational side. The functional facilities that we have in place include Accounting, Human Resources and Communication and Sales, whilst our operational facilities comprise Fabrication, Erection and Engineering and Procurement. Then there are obviously the Quality, Service and Safety divisions as well.”

“We have four sites in Morocco, each of which has a fabrication department,” he informs. The company’s headquarters, he tells us, are based in the city of Casablanca (Ain Sebaa), as is the first fabrication facility, which is 26,000 sq. metres in size. 

“Our new wind tower workshop is located in Tetmellil – around 25km from Casablanca – and has a floor space of around 100,000 sq. metres,” he explains. This newly-operational unit was opened in Autumn 2008 to match the sharply-rising global demand for these products. Its current build capacity is 300 towers per year. 

“The 20,000 sq. metre fabrication facility for DGM – a subsidiary of DLM – is located in Jorf Lasfar, which is around 120 km south of Casablanca,” advises Mr Kouider. “As a subsidiary, this site is under different management, so has all it's own administration and so on.” 

“Our last site is the 15,000 sq. metre construction yard located inside the port of Jorf Lasfar, which is dedicated to offshore construction work and is specifically for the assembly of very large pieces that we cannot transport by road,” he explains. “So we are near the quay, we make the assembly and we ship it right through by barge to the port of Jorf Lasfar.”

At each of these sites, DLM's vast, technologically-advanced industrial equipment ensures that they can fulfil the most demanding projects with the highest level of competence. DLM's workshop tools include gas-cutting and plasma; press and bending; manual and automatic welding; grit blasting and painting; assembly; sawing, shearing and punching; benders; turning machines and positioners; heat treatment streaming; erecting equipment; drilling; machining units; travelling cranes plus a vast array of testing equipment.

Testing to ensure that the highest level of quality is maintained throughout the company's extensive product range is clearly of critical importance for products destined for applications as demanding as the oil and gas industry, for example. As such, DLM's facilities boast a wide range of innovative non-destructive testing equipment including X-ray and gamma ray sources, Negastocopes, U.S machines, Thickness detectors, hydraulic proof pumps, dimension and geometrical testing and paint-thickness measuring.

Specialists in a variety of industries 

“In terms of products, DLM are specialists in the heavy steel constructions in general”, informs Mr Kouider. “More specifically, we can provide products such as pressure vessels for gas, piping for gas and oil, chemicals and water, plus heavy and medium plate work As a service, we also provide structural steel fabrication and erection services, both inside and outside of Morocco.” 

“We are very diverse in terms of the industries that we cater for – these include oil and gas, mining, chemical, energy and cement,” he tells us. “The cement industry is the area from which the majority of DLM’s contracts come,” says Mr Kouider. “The Cement Industry accounted for around 30 per cent of our business in 2008. Major customers in this sector include Lafarge, Holcim and Efal Cimente.” 

“The Oil and Gas and Offshore industries combined accounted for a further 30 per cent of the company's business,” he continues. “In terms of oil and gas, our major customers are Total and Shell. And then in terms of offshore activity we have the companies Asserghee, Perenco and Esbehm as clients.”

“Advanced Engineering structures, such as bridges and buildings, account for around 20 per cent and the remaining 20 percent is made up of various other sectors,” he tells us. “One of our notable customers in this sector is OCP – the first industrial producer of Phosphate in the world,” informs Mr Kouider. “Other prominent clients include Jacobs and Monsanto.”

Even within each industry sector the specifications vary wildly form project to project, meaning that flexibility and the ability to communicate well with the customer are necessarily key characteristics of DLM, as Mr Kouider points out. “Every project is different, so we are very keen to handle them according to the customer's expectations.”

Landmark projects 

DLM's extensive workshop and on-site construction capabilities mean that no job is too big for Morocco's number one firm, as exemplified by the firm's latest landmark project. “A significant project recently completed by DLM was the entire construction and fabrication of an oil platform,” informs Mr Kouider. The platform project was undertaken on behalf of the Congolese organisation Congorep for the main contractor Perenco. 

“This contract was awarded to us in 2007 and was worth US$25 million,” he tells us, and was a project that was of particular significance, to both DLM and their home nation, as the first offshore drilling rig fabricated on Moroccan soil.

“The project presented a big challenge,” admits Mr Kouider, perhaps unsurprisingly. “We had to fabricate the entire 4000-tonne platform, including the assembly of all equipment inside the platform – the boiler, the crane, the processing equipment, all of these key supplies.”

The platform was fabricated in DLM's sub-workshops in Aïn Seba and at the assembly yard in the port of Jorf Lasfar. It was then drawn on a semi-submersible barge to the place of installation in the Republic the Congo. Finally, the platform was connected to the oil field “Emerald”, located on the Atlantic coast of Congo, near Brazzaville. “We started work on the platform in October 2007 and it was shipped to the Congo on December 12th 2008,” he tells us. “The entire platform project required roughly 500,000 hours of manpower.”

Despite the challenges faced on the mammoth project, DLM built the huge platform with innovative self-installation technology which meant that upon delivery, the structure took only 15 days to install. The “Emerald Steam Driver” platform is set to have a 500,000 barrels per day oil capacity when it starts production in February.

Mentioning a few more projects currently in the pipeline, Mr Kouider reveals “We are just in the process of signing a new contract with another company – the construction and erection of a 440 metre long metal-structure bridge in Morocco. The client for the project is the Highway authorities and the contract is worth US$10 million to us,” continues Mr Kouider. “Other big projects currently underway are at the cement plants of Lafarge and Eca Cementi.”

Highly trained team

The competency of DLM's human resources has, Mr Kouider believes, been a key factor in the company's success and expansion over the years. “I think that we have a great deal of expertise, through our long history, and we also have a very professional team of employees,” he advises. “In particular, we have a very experienced and highly trained team of engineers, and that reflects well in the quality of our project work. This high level of competence is maintained by our intensive programmes of training for technical jobs such as welding”, he informs. “We also have special programmes in place for Safety and IT training, plus special courses for top management. Part of this skills training is carried out in-house – especially for the computer, language and safety courses – but other specialist vocational training is conducted off-site, sometimes even outside Morocco.”

Undertaking heavy steel construction jobs means that safety training is clearly of the utmost importance for both DLM and their clients: “In terms of safety, we have our procedures and also follow our customers' expectations,” advises Mr Kouider. “Training our personnel to the highest possible standard is a priority when it comes to H&S, especially in the off-shore and cement activities,” he stresses. “And obviously, from the customer's point of view, it is important for them to be able to check our safety programme and our safety record and so on,” he continues. “So before we embark upon a project – before we have even been awarded it – we will carry out an audit.” 

Focus on wind power

“Our strategy going forward will be to focus increasingly on Wind Power,” informs Mr Kouider. Indeed, this could prove a wise move for the company. Although wind power produces only about one percent of worldwide electricity use, it is growing rapidly – increasing more than fivefold between 2000 and 2007. Over the past three years, Morocco's installed wind power capacity has more than doubled – from 64 MW in 2005 to 134 MW in 2008. 

DLM's new wind tower fabrication facility was established last year to accommodate the sharply rising demand for these products. The facility can accommodate the fabrication of turbines reaching up to 100 metres high. 

“Companies involved in wind power development that we have already carried out projects for include a Danish company called Vestas, and more recently we have done two projects for Gamesa” – the Spanish company who enjoyed a 15 % world market share in wind power generation. “This was our second biggest wind tower construction so far.”

There is ample opportunity for wind energy developers to secure funding for such projects, and this will undoubtedly benefit companies such as DLM, being at the forefront in terms of their capability to provide a full service to these clients in terms of both fabrication and installation, as Mr Kouider is well aware: “We will certainly be looking to expand this side of the business over the coming few years.”

Energy and export – A strategy for growth

Across the board, the company will continue to carry out research to improve both quality and productivity. “Some of this research involves improving the quality of our welding. Other research involves metal – in terms of how to handle the product, how to reduce the cost and to improve the safety and the quality.”

“Over the next couple of years, DLM will be concentrating its efforts on projects in the energy sector and on expanding into new markets,” says Mr Kouider, with the company's strategic direction for the coming year based on lines of development in offshore oil, wind power and export. “Strategy number one will be to concentrate on our newly-operational Wind Tower fabrication plant at Tetmellil , near Casablanca,” he tells us, “to attract more clients in this rapidly expanding sector of renewable energy.”

“The second strategy for expansion will be to maintain a strong focus on our offshore construction sector,” he informs. “We have a great deal of experience in building infrastructure for offshore drilling, and hope to maximise upon our expertise in the future.”

“Our last expansion strategy is to export more,” Mr Kouider tells us. “Right now, approximately 40 percent of our turnover comes from outside Morocco. Indeed, DLM already enjoys a good position in the markets of West Africa to the Gulf of Guinea and in the Middle East, but as Mr Kouider points out, “DLM would like to expand further into Africa and undertake more projects in Senegal, Niger, Gabon, Angola and Burkina Faso, for example. We have already carried out projects in some of these countries and we are now keen to expand further,” he says. “We see a great deal of potential for us in these areas,” he adds.

Already clear leaders in Morocco's heavy steel construction industry and achieving award-winning standards of quality, DLM are now fast emerging onto the international platform as construction partner to an extensive range of demanding industries. Their present focus on both specialist oil drilling and wind power projects will undoubtedly support their successful and sustainable expansion in the future.