Right as Bahrain: Madison and Mannai Trading

Madison is currently celebrating two decades of success in the Arab gulf countries and is now using that success to expand its network of alliances in the area.

A white paper published by the Economist Intelligence Unit in September 2009 calls the gulf region one of the world’s fastest growing populations and estimates the population will expand to 53 million by 2020. As cities grow, the demand for more and greater infrastructure follows. Estimates of the value of the coming infrastructure boom vary, but somewhere between $1 and $2 trillion will be spent over the next several years.

The Al-Mannai Group, located in Bahrain, is an example of Madison’s alliances in the area. Based on a number of successful projects in the early 2000’s,

Madison appointed Mannai Trading, one of the Group’s four divisions, as a distributor in 2007. In general, Mannai Trading focuses on the infrastructure and energy construction sectors of the economy. The Madison and Mannai partnership focuses on coatings for the infrastructure, such as coatings and linings for storage tanks and pipelines.

There is a high regard throughout the area for leading edge technology, making this a perfect fit for the many advances made by Madison’s research team in recent years. Mannai’s role, with support from Madison VP Blair Russell, will be to show its customers how to protect and preserve new infrastructure projects with polymer coatings designed to last throughout the 21st century and beyond.

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Who needs standards?
Meeting the new coating standard for wind towers

A significant shift has occurred in the wind tower industry, and Madison was ready for it. The industry’s adoption of the rigorous ISO 12944 performance standard for protective coatings will ensure that wind tower coatings meet an exacting standard.

As late at 2007, technical requirements on wind towers were often overly accommodating to a range of protective coatings that didn’t deliver the performance required for such a demanding application. Long-term performance would often take a back seat to cost effectiveness and ease of use. ISO 12944 changes that.

The new standard, ISO 12944-Corrosion Protection of Steel Structures by Protective Paint Systems was written as both an informational and instructional guide for the use of paint and coating systems on steel substrates.

The wind tower industry in North America has now adopted the ISO 12944 standard as its objective performance

criteria. Madison has embraced this new protocol. We now have several systems, both plural component and mix and apply products approved to each level and regime including the challenging C5I regime 2 testing.

Let Madison help you find the right coating system for your wind tower, or any other application that uses ISO 12944 as its standard.

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