Emergency call in Abu Dhabi: How KSB SupremeServ helped mitigate the consequences of a flood of the century

 

When the phone rang at 08:15 on a Sunday morning, Raymond Hiel, Managing Director KSB Service LLC Abu Dhabi knew that this order would be like no other. “We have a problem,” said an employee of the semi-governmental utility provider of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. A few days earlier, on 16 April 2024, a storm had hit the United Arab Emirates with the heaviest rainfall since meteorological records began. Now, the most important waste water tunnel of the city with its million-plus inhabitants was flooded and out of operation. “Okay, we’ll send someone straight away,” replied Raymond Hiel.

The ferocity of the rainfall had surprised the entire region. “It was as if a water bomb had dropped onto the United Arab Emirates,” recalls Raymond Hiel. In Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, the three largest cities in the country, entire districts had been flooded. Electricity, water supply and waste water disposal failed in many districts. And to add to the tragedy, five people drowned during the flooding. The storm of the century also affected KSB. A gust of wind ripped off part of the KSB SupremeServ workshop roof in Abu Dhabi, bringing down a wall in the process. 

The situation in Abu Dhabi was serious: The huge amounts of rain had flooded and taken out of service the STEP tunnel, a sewer measuring up to 5.5 metres wide and 40 kilometres long, which was completed only in 2016. To drain the tunnel and restore the city’s waste water disposal, the utility provider needed MPS1 – a pumping station in the centre of the city that had been decommissioned once the STEP tunnel had been opened. “And that’s where we came in, to perform the maintenance and to get this pumping station up and running again as fast as possible,” says Raymond Hiel. 

Half an hour after the call, a field service team was already making its way to MPS1 to get an idea of the situation. The pumping station was a circular collecting tank measuring eleven metres deep that housed eight waste water pumps. An electric motor with an output of 410 kilowatts – roughly the same power as an underground power car – drove each pump via a cardan shaft. Once the collecting tank had been drained using the pumps, the pumps were removed and transported to the KSB SupremeServ workshop on low loaders. “To get them up and running again, we had to perform complete maintenance,” explains Raymond Hiel.

Dealing with pumps from a Japanese manufacturer that are not KSB products was no challenge at all for the team. “Around 60 to 70 percent of the maintenance orders are pumps from other manufacturers,” says Raymond Hiel. A bigger problem: The pump sets were over 30 years old and spare parts were no longer available. Pump shafts, shaft protecting sleeves and impellers had to be re-manufactured using reverse engineering. To do this, the service technicians scanned the original components in their workshop, produced drawings and then had a partner cast the spare parts. KSB was able to deliver the first new impeller after just three weeks, with the second impeller following after six weeks. 

The shaft bearings proved to be a major problem. For such a large number of pumps, the bearings were not in stock as spare parts in the United Arab Emirates. “We had to look internationally to find them,” recalls Raymond Hiel. Eventually, his team in the Netherlands and in Oman found what they were looking for and had the valuable shaft bearings shipped to Abu Dhabi. The KSB technicians also managed to recondition the cardan shafts, flywheels and electric motors on all eight pumps. Finally, the KSB technicians installed KSB Guard, a system that monitors the condition of pumps based on vibrations and temperatures, conducted an analysis and provided technical advice. 

Due to the emergency situation, speed was decisive. “After the reconditioning, we worked day and night in two shifts to reinstall these pumps,” explains Raymond Hiel. The work was hard: It was summer in the United Arab Emirates, with temperatures reaching 45°C. Added to which, the air conditioning in the workshops did not work due to the storm damage. “Phenomenal heat and waste water – that doesn't make for a pleasant work environment.” Looking back, he’s really proud of the team’s commitment. “It was incredible. Everyone appreciated just how important it was to help the customer get this pumping station up and running – even if they had to work under arduous conditions.” 

The team’s dedication paid off, with the first two pumps already up and running again on 31 July 2024. On 8 October 2024, all the units were finally running again. For its dedication, the entire team was awarded “Employee of the Quarter”. At the annual KSB SupremeServ World Meeting, held in Dubai in April 2025, they were called up onto the stage and celebrated.

Raymond Hiel sums up this project as follows: “This confirms that our concept of providing complete solutions is precisely the right approach in emergencies. With good field staff and a workshop that can handle absolutely everything internally.”Naturally, you’ve got to have the knowledge, the skills and the capacities. The most important thing for him though is something quite different: “Good people that are prepared to go the extra mile.”