Dubai’s ‘Gulf News’ has switched to Berliner format with the commissioning of a giant waterless KBA Cortina pressline at Al Nisr Publishing.

The highly-automated line with 12 compact 4/1 towers, four heatset dryers and three folders – installed in a new building in the desert – started coldset/heatset hybrid printing on June 1.

The order, placed in 2010, was KBA’s first for a waterless press outside Europe and the first 4/1 version.

The configuration allows production of a broad spectrum of coldset, heatset and hybrid products without changing ink, “awesome flexibility” Al Nisr managing director Obaid Humaid Al Tayer said was only possible with the Cortina. Advanced technology enhances print quality of both the newspaper and the company’s supplements and magazines, while trimming make-ready times, waste and manning levels.

Launched in 1978 as a 3000-circulation tabloid, ‘Gulf News’ went broadsheet in 1980 circulating about 118,000 copies (2010, Sat-Thur) in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi-Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan (Fri 122,000 copies).