Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) (Arabic: شركة اتحاد المقاولين) is the largest construction company in the Middle East and ranks among the top 25 international contractors with a revenue of US$5.3 billion in 2013 and 1.872 billion by 2020. CCC has offices and projects in over 40 countries, and in 2023 had a workforce of 36,000 employees. In April 2019, CCC was engaged in 40 ongoing projects globally. The majority of its sales (some 80%) are in the Middle East.
Founded in 1952, this privately held company "offers commercial project management, engineering, procurement, and construction services", according to Bloomberg. The company's own publications discuss "construction, engineering, procurement, development and investment activities internationally"
in areas from the Middle East to Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea.
In the summer of 1941, after having graduated from American University in Beirut, Hasib Sabbagh, one of the founders of CCC, returned to Israel to find a job. After a number of disappointing job offers, he decided to start his own business and went to Beirut in spring 1948, where a number of his brothers and sisters had already sought refuge due to the Arab–Israeli War. Hasib set up his own company with his brother-in-law Said Khoury and some other businessmen from Syria and Lebanon, and called it Consolidated Contractors Company.
The company's first headquarters was in Homs, Syria, but later moved to Beirut, where Hasib Sabbagh, Said Khoury, and Kamel Abedelrahman, the founders, became the sole owners of CCC to create an Arab construction company. In 1950, CCC won a large contract to build pipelines from Kirkuk in Iraq, to Banyas in Syria, and Tripoli in Lebanon. In 1952, CCC was able to obtain another major contract for a Bechtel-Wimpey joint venture, this time in Aden, to build a major refinery and a camp for workers. A year later, CCC won projects in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar. In 1973, CCC set up the National Petroleum Construction Company in Abu Dhabi to provide offshore services to the oil and gas industries in all the Arabian Gulf countries. Today NPCC has an annual revenue of over US$800 million
In 1975, when the civil war broke out in Lebanon, CCC moved its headquarters first to London and then to Athens in 1976. In the same year, Abd al-Rahman decided to sell his shares in CCC to Sabbagh and Khoury. In the 1980s, CCC was restructured and the CCC owners aimed at expanding the company's operations into Europe, the United States, and Asia. CCC bought Underwater Engineering, a British firm that worked on underwater oil projects, and ACWa, an environmental company. CCC also bought SICON, an Italian mechanical engineering company specializing in petroleum-related projects. They then acquired the Morganti Group, a construction firm in the United States.
To diversify its projects, CCC started a partnership with Canadian OXY, and won a bid to explore for oil in Masila, South Yemen. Fortunately, oil was found in large quantities. Oil exports from Masila peaked at 170,000 barrels per day.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 dealt a heavy blow to CCC's operations in the Persian Gulf region. The company had to move all of its employees out of Kuwait and close down its business operations there. However, by the mid-1990s, CCC emerged again as a thriving company after having navigated successfully the economic and political downturns of the early 1990s growing into the versatile and diversified large international construction company it is today.
In 2019, CCC specializes inHeavy Civil Construction, Buildings and Civil Engineering Works, Mechanical Engineering Works, Heavy and Light Industrial Plants, Marine Works, Offshore Installations, Highways, roads and airports, and Pipelines for water, gas, oil and slurry.
CCC has a portfolio that includes oil and gas plants, refineries and petrochemical facilities, pipelines, power and desalination plants, light industries, water and sewage treatment plants, airports and seaports, heavy civil works, dams, reservoirs and distribution systems, road networks and skyscrapers.
CCC constructed the Azerbaijani section of The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline. The pipeline is a 1,768 kilometres (1,099 mi) long crude oil pipeline from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and Ceyhan, a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, via Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It is the second-longest oil pipeline in the former Soviet Union, after the Druzhba pipeline. CCC's scope included engineering, procurement, installation, construction and commissioning of 886 km crude oil and gas pipeline.
CCC built the $1-billion Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi. The palace houses the offices of the president, the Crown Prince, and ministers. It is set on a 1,500,000 sq m including the palace, which will be 160,000 sq m. The ancillary buildings, over a site of 23,000 sqm, includes a public majlis, a mosque, staff and military accommodations, a services compound, and various gatehouses and watchtowers. The project also includes 2000m of six-metre seawall and 4 million cubic metres of dredging.
CCC is constructing in a joint venture the Riyadh metro.
A joint venture between CCC and Saipem constructed the main works at the Karachaganak field in western Kazakhstan. The projects' s value was about 1.1 billion dollars. The contract covered civil works, infrastructures and mechanical works related to a production unit and gas reinjection facilities, a gas process plant and a 635 km x 24" pipeline with a pumping station and terminal.
In Abu Dhabi, CCC contributed to the construction of the Offshore Associated Gas Project, and Habshan Facilities, and the largest ethylene cracker in the world. The Landmark project in Abu Dhabi, completed in 2011, was the second highest tower in Abu Dhabi (324 m); and the company also worked on Khalifa Port Shah Sulfur Station & Pipelines.
Elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, CCC has been working on a number of major projects in Qatar, including: Khursaniyah Producing Facilities & Gas Plants in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. The Khalifa Sports Hall, Doha, Qatar. This new sports hall is the world’s largest air-conditioned indoor facility of its kind.
CCC also built the Nile Corniche Project in Cairo: One of the largest construction projects in Egypt and the Ritz Carlton hotel in Doha.
The Bethlehem Convention Palace is a joint investment of CCC and the Palestine Investment Fund. The site includes the three historic Solomon's Pools,