Arab Finance: The Egyptian Refining Company (ERC) is deploying an AI-powered agent to predict equipment failures before they happen, Chairman of Qalaa Holdings Ahmed Heikal said at the EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum.
Heikal noted that a one-day refinery shutdown costs Qalaa Holdings around $5 million in income, while restarting the facility takes about seven days, meaning a single outage could result in around $35 million in loss.
The AI agent is trained to recognize healthy and unhealthy operating signatures of ERC’s machinery, Head of Digital Transformation Ramy Harfoush explained.
It monitors pressure, temperature, vibration, and flow data to identify patterns that preceded previous failures. The agent can then automatically create a maintenance case, including previous work orders and root-cause failure analysis reports, and check spare-parts availability and lead times when parts are not in stock.
In September, Qalaa Holdings’ board approved purchasing an additional stake in ERC to raise its indirect stake in ERC to 27.1% from 13%.
Under the transaction, the EGX-listed group would acquire a 55.4% stake in New Age Refining Ltd, which would purchase all shares in QPI Egypt Ltd from QatarEnergy at par value.
