RIYADH, 22 October — Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced yesterday its net profits rose by 8.5 percent to SR2.04 billion ($544 million) in the first nine months of 2002 from a year earlier.
Managing Director Mohammed Al-Mady attributed the rise to higher sales and improvement in petrochemical prices.
SABIC, 70 percent owned by the government, made a net profit of SR1.88 billion in the first nine months of 2001. Mady said in a statement that 2002 third-quarter net profits rose 55 percent to SR1.05 billion from a year earlier.
He said SABIC turned out 30.3 million tons of product in the nine-month period compared with 26.3 million tons in the same period last year. Sales grew 10 percent to 22.7 million tons, he added.
Total income stood at SR23.9 billion on Sept. 30, 2002, up three percent from a year earlier. This included income from SABIC European Petrochemical Company, he said.
