Saudi Arabia's petrochemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) plans to increase its production from 43 million tons to 64 million tons within the next 3 years to become the world's largest producer of ethylene glycol. With this plan in view, SABIC intends to invest US$70 billion within the next 15 years. Investment outlay for expansion in the next three years alone at SABIC will cross US$20 billion.
H1-2005 net profits stood at SR9.84 billion (US$2.6 billion), registering an increase of 84% compared to the profits in the same period last year. SABIC's total production in H1-2005 stood at 22.5 million metric tons, an increase of 10% over the previous year. This increase can be attributed to the United affiliate's phase I project going on stream, adding more than 2 million metric tons annually to production figures.
Some of SABIC's operations are joint ventures with multi-national partners that include Exxon Mobil, Shell, Celanese, Neste, Ecofuel-ENI, Mitsubishi. SABIC's global expansion commenced in 2002, with the acquisition in Dutch company, DSM, including two production sites in Geleen, Netherlands, and Gelsenkirchen, Germany. SABIC then bought Owen Corning's 50% share in a former Corning-DSM partnership called StaMax. The StaMax product is glass-reinforced polypropylene used by the auto industry to make engine accessories and body parts for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and other fine cars.
19-Sep-05 
{{comment.DateTimeStampDisplay}}
{{comment.Comments}}