RIYADH, 9 October 2007 — Rowad National Plastics Co., a leading plastic processor in the Middle East, and Tasnee’s affiliate, unveiled a plan yesterday to set up a new packaging plant at a cost of over SR200 million.
Dr. Moayyed I. Al-Qurtas, Tasnee’s CEO and chairman of the Rowad board of directors, said “Tasnee has awarded the contract to an Austrian company DMT Technology Holding Gmbh to build the biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) plant in Dammam.”
He said BOPP films are widely used for packaging purposes in the Kingdom and the Gulf states especially in the packaging of fast moving consumer products such as snack foods, bakery products, and confectionary items.
In fact, the packaging industry in Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries is in full swing. Estimates indicate that the Gulf packaging market represents about five percent of the global market size of $500 billion, with a growth rate that is much higher than global averages. The establishment of this new packaing facility in the Kingdom will cater more to the local needs. Al-Qurtas said the BOPP plant will have the production capacity of 30,000 tons per year.
Spelling out the salient features of this project, Mohammed Al-Laabon, Rowad’s general manager, said the new company will be named “Rowad International Packaging Co. Ltd.” “Rowad has already signed a contract with DMT Technology Holding for 8.7m wide BOPP film production line”, Laabon said, adding that Rowad will get “full technical support and know-how from DMT. Plans are also afoot to set up marketing offices and warehouses in Europe and America.”
Al-Laabon said: “One of the unique features of our new plant is the raw materials, which will come mainly from Tasnee resin plants. The resins properties will facilitate the improvement of products for traditional market applications viz BOPP film.” “With high quality PP resins, we will offer BOPP films with unique combinations of toughness, flexibility and transparency with consistency at a competitive cost,” he noted.
He further said that Rowad was working on a few major expansion plans especially in the fields of BOPP, geo-membrane, plastic sheets, injection molding, plastic recycling and other related areas. Tasnee is a leading industrial company in Saudi Arabia as well as in international level. Its affiliate Cristal/Millennium Inorganic Chemicals is the second largest producer of titanium dioxide pigment in the world.
Its polyolefins production facilities included polypropylene plant, which is being expanded to 700,000 MTY with the start-up of its 1,000,000 MTY ethylene craker in 2008. Additionally it will operate by then a 400,000 MTY HDPE and a 400,000 MTY LDPE. Its polyolefins plants are in partnership with Basell and local partners. Since its launch in 1985, Tasnee has played a significant role in the Kingdom’s industrial growth, participating in a range of national and joint venture projects.
It continues to seek lucrative returns for its shareholders’ investments through the establishment of new industrial projects that eventually helps the growth of the national economy, its diversification and the transfer of technology.
DMT, on the other hand, is an independent Austria’s engineering and consulting company, which specializes in high packaging technology and in industrial know-how.
