Overview
The operators who keep water flowing, power on and production lines moving all share the same equipment problem. Pumps, compressors, turbines, heat exchangers and cooling systems run around the clock, and the public, the regulator and the business all notice when one of them stops. Across the GCC, the operators pulling ahead are changing how they maintain these assets. They no longer rely on the next scheduled inspection to tell them what has already gone wrong.
An unplanned failure on a critical asset rarely costs only a repair. It costs service continuity, emergency call-outs, contractor hours, and sometimes public trust. The warning signs are usually there weeks earlier. The challenge is reading them in time, and the gap between operators who do and operators who wait for the next inspection cycle keeps widening.
In this fireside chat, Mahmoud Selim, Groundup.ai’s Country Manager for Saudi Arabia, sits down with Jaber Alyami, Maintenance Engineering Group Leader at Aramco. Jaber leads the multi-disciplinary team providing round-the-clock engineering support for NGL operations at Abqaiq Plants, one of the world’s largest processing facilities, and he is a Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP). He’ll share what reliability looks like when failure isn’t an option, and which of those lessons carry over to any operator running critical assets.
Your next failure is already forming. Will you see it first?
Schedule
Date: 16 Nov 2026, Monday
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM (GMT +8:00) Kuala Lumpur, Singapore
Location: Online
Speakers
Speaker's Profile:
Mahmoud Selim, Saudi Arabia Country Manager, Groundup.ai
Mahmoud Selim leads Groundup.ai’s work across the GCC, helping operators in critical infrastructure, oil & gas, manufacturing and maritime turn IoT and industrial AI investments into measurable operational outcomes. With a background in software engineering, he works comfortably at the point where technical teams and business leaders meet, guiding large organisations from first conversation to long-term deployment. His focus is on partnerships that grow over time, so that AI becomes part of how an operation runs rather than a one-off project.
Speaker's Profile:
Jaber Alyami, Maintenance Engineering Group Leader, Aramco
Jaber Alyami leads the Maintenance Engineering Group that provides round-the-clock support for NGL operations at Aramco’s Abqaiq Plants, one of the world’s largest oil processing facilities. His multi-disciplinary team covers the full asset lifecycle, from integrity and reliability to project delivery, working alongside Operations, Maintenance, Engineering and contractor teams. His hands-on experience spans rotating equipment such as turbines, compressors and pumps, as well as columns, heat exchangers, storage tanks and cooling towers. He previously served as T&I Oil Group Leader, and he has championed the use of advanced inspection technologies to improve asset reliability. Jaber holds a Master’s in Thermal and Fluid Science and a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM). He is a Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) and holds the FE certification.
