RIYADH, 3 November 2004 — Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) said on Monday it will raise output of long and flat steel products by over 40 percent to 5.5 million tons by 2006.
The majority state-owned petrochemicals and industrial firm said it signed four deals with Germany’s Siemens, Austria’s Voest Alpina, Matrix Technologies and their Saudi affiliates to build new flat steel production plants. “These agreements and expansions represent part of SABIC’s strategic plan to meet the market’s growing demands and improve its position worldwide,” said SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO Mohamed Al-Mady.
“In 2003 capacity reached 3.9 million metric tons of long and flat steel products. Upon completion of this new expansion program by 2006, annual production will rise to 5.5 million metric tones of long and flat steel products”.
SABIC has two large industrial sites in Saudi Arabia - Jubail and Yanbu - with 16 world-scale production complexes. Some of these production complexes are operated with multi-national partners such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Fortum, Ecofuel/ENI and Mitsubishi Chemicals. In addition, SABIC has interests in three production complexes in Bahrain. Over the last 16 years, SABIC’s overall production capacity has increased considerably. In 2003 it amounted to 42.3 million metric tons.
SABIC EuroPetrochemicals owns two petrochemical production sites in Geleen (Netherlands) and Gelsenkirchen (Germany) for the production, marketing and sales of polypropylenes, polyethylenes and hydrocarbons. It annually sells about 2.6 million tons of polymers, mainly in Europe. About 2,300 people are employed at SABIC EuroPetrochemicals. SABIC employs more than 16,000 people worldwide, most of whom are based in Saudi Arabia. In 2003, SABIC posted sales of approximately SR47.1bn ($12.56bn) and a net profit of approximately SR6.716bn ($1.79 billion). Last month SABIC said net profits for the first ninth months of 2004 doubled from the same period last year to $2.55 billion.
