ABU DHABI: UAE petrochemical firm Borouge is keeping a tight rein on costs as the oil sector’s downturn has hit prices for plastic products, its CEO said.

The joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Austria’s Borealis produces and exports plastics including polymers and polyethylene, the prices of which are closely linked to those of its main feedstock, oil.

“All budgeting is done on conservative oil prices. We are reducing costs and managing costs carefully,” Borouge CEO Wim Roels said, adding that prices of plastic products have fallen by 30 percent this year.

He declined to give specific figures on budget cuts or costs.

Borouge is on track to ramp up its Abu Dhabi plant’s average annual output of polyolefins to 4.5 million tons from 3.5 million tons by the middle of 2016, he said at the opening of the company’s $150 million innovation center in Abu Dhabi.

While a third of the company’s exports go to Middle Eastern markets, the remainder supplies Asian markets such as China, India, South Korea, Myanmar and other south-Asian countries.

Borouge recently opened an office in Morocco as an entry into African markets that are showing significant growth, Roels said, adding that Africa will be one of the company’s future growth areas.