(MENAFN- Arab News) General Electric and Saudi Arabia have a decades-long partnership that has strengthened and diversified over the years.
GE is committed to making the Kingdom more competitive on a global scale by driving and increasing localization in people products and processes by 2024.
The GE Manufacturing Technology Center (GEMTEC) in Dammam is working to develop manufacturing capability in the Kingdom and to manufacture GE's most advanced gas turbines at the center.
GE will expand its facilities in the Kingdom for the region with the production of GE's HA gas turbines the world's largest and most efficient gas turbine.
The center aims to develop local talent and supply chain capabilities match it with state-of-the-art facilities and progress the scope sophistication and quality of manufacturing at the center.
The objective is to establish Saudi Arabia as a regional manufacturing hub for advanced gas turbines and strengthen the energy ecosystem of the Kingdom.
First high efficiency gas turbine will roll out of the center in 2016 bringing with it new engineering jobs and more opportunities for local suppliers.
Initially 8-10 gas turbines will be produced per year with ample room for expansion over time.
It will create more than 100 direct new technical jobs and many times that through indirect jobs in the local supply chain.
Joseph Anis vice president of Sales and Commercial Operations Power Generation Services exuded confidence that partnership with Saudi Arabia will continue to grow.
He referred to the planned production of GE's most advanced gas turbines in the Kingdom saying it would make Saudi Arabia the main GE production hub in the region.
Anis was talking to journalists from across the world who were visiting GE's Power Generation Services in Atlanta Georgia recently.
GE had arranged a media tour of its facility in Greenville South Carolina and its Power Generation Services in Atlanta.
The journalists were shown how the Monitoring and Diagnostic Center in Atlanta works and how it takes care of its customers across the globe.
GEMTEC in Dammam will expand its capabilities to include 320-ton lift capability; enhanced repair and maintenance capabilities; high-speed balance facility for generator rotors in the Kingdom; blower and compressor operations; a heavy duty gas turbine manufacturing center of excellence; a repair research and development center and creating new engineering jobs and more opportunities for local suppliers.
To further create a solid infrastructure for local manufacturing GE aims to build an assembly and calibration center of excellence for the oil and gas measurement and control business in Dammam.

The center will include:

BN Cabinet Assembly
FC Assembly and Calibration
Building on its 80 years of partnership in the Kingdom GE is working to train and nurture talented Saudi nationals create new jobs and promote a culture of entrepreneurship.
Moving to the next era of growth in tune with the requirements of the Kingdom GE is committed to bringing enormous opportunities offered by advanced manufacturing where it will integrate big data with big iron maximizing productivity and enhancing efficiency.
GE recently announced $100 million in new programs that will further the company's localization efforts build innovation capacity and create jobs in advanced manufacturing and software analytics in Saudi Arabia.
This new investment adds to GE's $1 billion commitment over the past three years in the Kingdom and aligns the company with the country's Vision 2024 and Ninth Development Plan to diversify the economy drive industrialization and manufacturing and build the next-generation of human capital skill-sets in materials and data science.
The research and manufacturing programs aims at enhancing the energy efficiency and sustainability priorities of the country.
GE is not only committed to providing clean energy at affordable costs to its customers worldwide it assists them by providing solutions to their problems.
GE's Monitoring & Diagnostic Center in Atlanta collects more than 30000 operating hours of data from a fleet of more than 1600 gas turbine and generator assets worldwide.
The monitoring and diagnostics team play a key role in helping GE customers operate their power plants at high levels of performance and reliability.
GE's monitoring center helped customers save $70 million in 2014. It assisted customers 3087 times in 2014 and 2369 in 2013.
The facility prevented 132 unplanned or forced power plant outages.
GE is strengthening its presence worldwide with its focus on Asia and Middle East. Apart from Saudi Arabia Turkey Egypt and Malaysia are some of the countries where GE is expanding its business.
General Electric's H-class gas turbine is transforming the power industry.
The H turbine provides a combination of the most output highest efficiency and best operational flexibility and leads the industry in total life cycle value.
The 9HA.01 gas turbine offers a net combined-cycle efficiency of more than 61 percent and leads the industry with reliable and cost-effective conversion of fuel to electricity compared with F-class technology.
Monte Atwell general manager Power Generation Lifecycle Product Management and John Lammas vice president Power Generation Engineering explained how HA gas turbines work.
The HA technology has proved it can meet the growing global need for cleaner energy in a more efficient and cost-effective way they said.
At a question answer session with the visiting journalists in the GE facility at Greenville they said GE was investing $2 billion in this high-efficiency technology.
The 9HA.01 gas turbine went through three-month comprehensive validation testing and based on exemplary results GE has updated the output and efficiency of HA machines.