We expect a big jump in customer demand, particularly among large EPC companies and OEMs.

Raphael TORRANO Managing Director WEG Middle East FZE

Electric motors for Saudi Arabia and the UAE

March 1, 2025

Raphael Torrano, managing director of WEG Middle East FZE, talks to The Energy Year about the company’s growing business with global OEMs and EPC contractors and the prospect of establishing manufacturing facilities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. WEG is a global manufacturer of electric and electronic equipment for the oil and gas, infrastructure and mining sectors, among others.

Who are WEG’s main clients in the UAE and Saudi Arabia?
WEG is a fully vertically integrated company. We have foundries and lamination facilities where we make our own wire and can cater to the specific needs of different end users. Regarding direct clients, WEG Middle East generates most of its revenue from pump OEMs based in Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
Our WEG counterparts in Europe have a lot of relationships, but in many cases, the project is sold here, and as more and more manufacturers come to the Middle East to meet Aramco’s and ADNOC’s requirements, we will see our local deals increase. 12 years ago, our revenue for the UAE office was around USD 15 million. Next year, we are expecting to bring in USD 150 million.
We have signed frame agreements for Borouge 4, the Amiral petrochemical complex and the Hail and Ghasha projects, with the value of each being around USD 60 million. In 2025, we expect a big jump in customer demand, particularly among large EPC companies and OEMs, so we have had to change the way our sales channels work. Previously, we supplied only to OEMs, but now we are starting to supply EPCs as well and, through them, we are signing frame agreements with the end users themselves.

What are your core markets in the Middle East?
Electric motors are the company’s core business. We invest 2.5% of our revenue annually in R&D, and we are always trying to improve the efficiency of our lines and launch new, innovative products. I would say that in 2023, 60% of everything we sold was released to the market in the previous five years.
If you look at our competitors, they may have a good market share, but they don’t invest as much in R&D. We don’t only invest in electric motors but also in related products such as variable-frequency drives (VFDs), transformers for hydropower supply, wind turbines and solar drives and panels. Lately, we have also been investing in IoT, digital solutions and AI to gather data on the energy consumption of motors to conduct preventive maintenance and promote energy efficiency. Such software solutions are especially interesting to EPC companies.
For the Borouge 4 project, we signed frame agreements with ADNOC in conjunction with the EPCs, and we did the same with Aramco in the Amiral project. In Qatar’s North Field and North Field South projects and the Duqm refinery in Oman, we were selected as the single supplier of electric motors and VFDs. The EPCs participating in projects typically select different suppliers for different components, such as motors and VFDs, but we were selected for the complete portfolio due to the expertise of our engineers with systems.
Being a single brand that supplies different products, we have also focused on after-sales and repair services. Most global companies have service capabilities, but they don’t have manufacturing facilities. We are the opposite. We have strong manufacturing, and we are moving into services. OEMs in the field now have just one contact to go, and this has been a game changer – especially in the Middle East. We can work globally with all the international EPCs, as we have commercial divisions in 41 countries and manufacturing facilities in 17.

Where do you see most of your growth coming from in the Middle East?
We don’t manufacture in the UAE yet. Many international OEMs and EPC companies have started to localise due to the ICV [in-country value] programme. We have a warehouse in the UAE to supply our clients, but the way procurement works has changed in the past five years, so manufacturing might be the next step for us in the future. Saudi Arabia is definitely within our plans, as they are pushing localisation more and giving clearer guidelines than the UAE, Oman or Qatar.
In 2025, we expect to surpass our CAGR of 17.7% globally. In 2023, the company’s turnover was around USD 6 billion. While tracing the origin is complex, around 10% of that can be said to have come from the Middle East, and the region is growing more than the company’s average market, at around 30% yearly. 50% of our revenue in the Middle East is from Saudi Arabia, 30-35% is from the UAE and the rest is divided amongst Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.

What are the main challenges of doing business in the Middle East compared to other parts of the world?
The difficult part for us today is to convince some of the main players to have WEG as an approved supplier. In the Middle East, companies work with approved vendor lists, and sometimes, they have a very limited range for approving new suppliers. Regulation is still one of our main challenges in the Middle East due to the amount of paperwork required.
Furthermore, all countries are different. For example, Saudi Arabia has regulations regarding high-efficiency products that don’t exist in the UAE. This means that any company from anywhere in the world can come in with high-energy-consuming electric motors and supply the market, creating discussions about pricing and other commercial aspects. So, we compete with low-end providers with no brand recognition who have lower specs but also lower prices.
It is through our sensors, IoT capabilities and digital systems that we can convince end users to choose us, showing them how much money they can save through better energy efficiency and safety. The FSB [Financial Stability Board] classifies 68.7% of the products that we sell as sustainable, which is a big competitive advantage. Also, WEG recently received a gold medal for sustainability from EcoVadis and achieved leadership status from CDP [Carbon Disclosure Project].

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