Pulin Parikh, Managing Director, Dillinger Middle East FZE
Pulin Parikh, Managing Director, Dillinger Middle East FZE Image Credit: Supplied

The Dillinger group comprises a series of top-ranking companies, which together provide maximum quality and the best possible service in the field of heavy plate. Heavy plate is produced at Dillingen in Germany and Dunkirk in France and annual production is around 1.9 million metric tonnes.

Dillinger has a history stretching back more than 300 years. The plant was founded in 1685, and in 1809, it became Germany’s first Aktiengesellschaft, or joint stock company.

The first continuous-caster for slabs in the world was commissioned in Dillingen in 1962. A further machine, permitting casting of slabs of up to 400 mm in thickness − the thickest produced anywhere in the world at that time − was added, along with other new facilities, in 1998.

In 2010, Dillinger Hütte successfully produced the first 450 mm thick slab − another world record.

Plates are produced to international technical specifications to meet our customer’s exacting standards.

In addition, our trading, flame-cutting and semi-fabrication affiliates in Europe provide further downstream services and customised solutions for sales, plus semi-fabrication of heavy plates and other steel products.

Dillinger Middle East FZE (DiME) is a 100 per cent wholly owned subsidiary of Dillinger and was set up in the Jebel Ali Free Zone in 1999 as the exclusive distributor of plates manufactured by Dillinger from its two principal plants in Germany and France.

With 25 dedicated and experienced staff, the JAFZA site has the capability to stock over 25,000 MT of steel plates with heavy lift magnetic cranes, state-of-the-art handling equipment as well as gas cutting facilities. It covers a wide swathe of geography from the Middle East and Africa to South Asia and the Far East catering to the oil and gas, pressure vessel manufacturing, offshore wind, construction machinery and heavy fabrication industries.

DiME’s range of plate covers thicknesses from 6mm to 290mm in various widths and lengths in API/ASME/ASTM and other international grade specifications including proprietary grades such as DICREST (HIC resistant), DILLIDUR (wear/abrasion resistant) and DILLIMAX (high yield strength)

Some of the major projects where Dillinger plates have been used include:

Ain Dubai, One Za’abeel, Clock Tower at Mecca, Address Sky View Hotel, and MOL & Lower Zakum Pipeline Projects for ADNOC.