Comparing steel quotations in Qatar: what each one includes, and what it leaves out

Two steel quotations for the same set of drawings can come back far apart, and the difference is rarely the price of steel. It is what each contractor has included, what it has assumed and what it has left for someone else. A low total that leaves out erection, or prices a lighter frame than the one you need, is not cheaper. It is a different job.

So before comparing totals, line the quotations up scope by scope. This guide goes through the lines that most often differ on steel buildings in Qatar, in roughly the order they come up. It gives no prices, and neither does the rest of this site, because Masas does not publish contract values. What it covers is what sits behind the number.

First, which package is each one pricing?

A steel package can be priced whole or in parts. Masas, for one, prices engineering, fabrication and erection together, or any part of it: design only, supply only, or erection of steel another company fabricated. The first thing to check is which of these each quotation actually is.

A supply-only price leaves the erection crew, the cranes and the site supervision to you or to another subcontractor. An erection-only price assumes someone else has produced approved shop drawings and delivered the steel to site. If one quotation supplies and erects and another only supplies, the totals cannot be compared until the missing part is priced.

Who designs the steel, and to which loads

If design is included, ask which loads it is designed to and get them in writing: the roof loads, wind, any crane, hoist or mezzanine, and anything the roof will carry later, such as solar panels or a heavy services run. A pre-engineered frame in particular is designed closely to its loads, so a quotation designed to lighter loads than another will be lighter, and lower, for that reason alone.

Ask as well who designs the connections, and who answers for the design if the consultant comments on it. What to settle before you ask for a price covers the decisions worth fixing in the brief, so that every contractor designs the same building.

Shop drawings and the consultant's approval

Shop drawings turn the design into the pieces the workshop cuts and welds, and on most projects in Qatar the consultant approves them before fabrication starts. Check that each quotation includes them, and that its programme leaves time for the consultant's review and for the resubmission that usually follows.

The specification matters here as much as the drawings. Name the specification the work will be approved against and ask each contractor to confirm it in writing, so that a lower price is not simply priced to a lighter standard than the one your consultant will check.

Steel grade, welding and the tonnage behind the price

Steel is bought by weight, so tonnage drives most of a fabrication price. A rate per tonne says little when one design uses more steel than another. Compare the total for the building you actually need, and ask each contractor for the tonnage it has assumed.

Check the steel grade against the design, and the welding standard against the specification. Masas fabricates in whichever grade the design specifies, with no fixed house grade, and welds to AWS standards. Whoever the contractor, both belong in the quotation rather than being left to the shop drawings.

Surface protection: paint system or galvanising

Surface treatment is easy to underprice and expensive to redo. A quotation should say how the steel is cleaned before painting, which paint system goes on and whether any of it is hot-dip galvanised, all to the project specification. On an industrial site the plant's own specification usually governs: at a caustic soda plant in Mesaieed, the plant structures and pipe racks were detailed to it.

Ask too who repairs damaged coating after erection. Steel is lifted, bolted and walked on, and the touch-up has to be somebody's line in a quotation.

The roof and walls: in or out?

Some steel quotations stop at the frame. Others include the roof and wall cladding, the gutters and flashings, skylights and the purlins they fix to. If one quotation includes the envelope and another does not, add the envelope to the second before comparing them.

There is a point beyond price, too. When the frame and the envelope sit in different subcontracts, the line where the cladding fixes to the steel belongs to both, and that is where responsibility usually gets argued. The frame and the envelope under one subcontract explains why it can pay to give both to one contractor. Masas prices its roofing and cladding and standing seam and sandwich panel work alongside the frame.

Erection: cranes, access and the programme

An erection price depends on the site as much as on the steel. Each quotation should say who provides the cranes and access equipment, where the steel will be stored and laid out, and what access it assumes for trucks and cranes. A tight plot, or one shared with other buildings under construction, changes the erection sequence and the time it takes.

Look at the programme each one commits to: how long fabrication and erection take, and whether the time allows for the summer months, when outdoor work in Qatar is restricted in the middle of the day. Site safety belongs in the comparison as well. Masas's ISO 45001 certificate names construction, installation and erection within its scope, and any contractor should be able to show how its own crews work at height.

What sits outside a steel quotation

Some work falls outside almost every steel quotation and is easy to forget when the steel price looks complete: the foundations and floor slab, setting the anchor bolts in the concrete, mechanical and electrical services, and any fire protection the building's fire strategy calls for. Ask who supplies the anchor bolts and who sets them, and ask each contractor to list its exclusions in writing. A quotation with a clear exclusions list is easier to compare than one that says nothing, even when its total is higher.

The conditions behind the total

The last lines to compare are the conditions: how long the price is valid, how payment is staged against design, fabrication, delivery and erection, and how changes will be priced if the drawings move after approval. Steel prices change, so the validity period of a quotation matters as much as its total.

Putting them side by side

Once every quotation has been brought to the same scope, design basis, specification, coating, envelope and erection, the totals can be compared, and the gap between them is usually smaller and easier to explain. Where it is still wide, the reason is usually in the tonnage, or in an assumption one contractor made and another did not. Ask about it before you award.

Masas prices the full package or any part of it, so its quotation can be set against the others line by line. Send the drawings and the scope you are comparing by WhatsApp or through the quotation form. For tender submissions, the prequalification page gathers the evidence consultants usually ask for.