SABIC to Join Automotive Innovation Joint Venture INPRO

BERLIN, Germany – September 7, 2011 – Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced in Berlin today that it has entered into an agreement to purchase an equity stake in INPRO, a joint venture dedicated to collaborative innovation in automotive production. SABIC will join Daimler, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp and Volkswagen as equity owners in the group. The Federal State of Berlin has also held shares in INPRO since its founding in 1983. SABIC comes to the JV with 45 years’ experience as a leading industry pioneer in automotive engineering plastics material technologies and application development, primarily through the dedicated automotive division of its Innovative Plastics strategic business unit, and will fully participate in INPRO’s joint innovation projects. Joining the INPRO JV reflects SABIC’s decades-long record of proactive engagement with the industry to advance lightweight material innovation across the world and to help OEM customers solve some of their most critical challenges.

INPRO develops innovative technologies for lightweight manufacturing and zero-defect production of automobiles. The group’s R&D focus includes the development of new production technologies for future electric and hybrid vehicles. With the realization of new innovative computer-based software tools, INPRO aims to shorten time-to-market and enhance the overall energy efficiency of automotive production.

“With one of the world’s broadest thermoplastics portfolios, SABIC is a welcome addition to our business model of collaborative innovation,” said INPRO CEO Dr. Gerd Eßer. “Innovative materials are critical to the evolution and success of the automotive production process and are vital in lightweight component construction, increased fuel efficiency, high performance and lower production costs. We are pleased to have SABIC join us, especially given the company’s proven ability over many decades in successfully co-innovating with automakers and tiers worldwide and the increasingly important role of thermoplastics materials in the industry. We believe INPRO will be even better equipped in the future to innovate in lightweight material production systems with SABIC as a partner.”

“Through INPRO, SABIC can participate and add value in the early stages of innovation with world-class companies, who continue to develop and create new vehicles and processes that meet the interests of automakers and consumers around the world,” said Gregory A. Adams, vice president of Innovative Plastics’ automotive division. “In contributing to the success of INPRO’s innovation activities, we will draw upon the knowledge of our six worldwide application development centers and our materials science. We look forward to contributing to INPRO’s joint innovation projects to help produce the industry’s next generation of advanced vehicles using high-performance, lightweight materials.”

INPRO has driven important technological innovations in automotive production over its 28-year history, including the introduction of high power solid state lasers – a key technology for weight reduction and enhanced passenger safety. INPRO has contributed significantly to the advancement of computer aided engineering in the automotive industry. One example of this lies in INPRO’s pioneering work in finite element simulation of sheet metal forming, which has allowed for significant cost and time reductions in toolmaking.

According to Joachim von Heimburg, Ph.D., SABIC’s general manager of global innovation and corporate research programs: “Today, more than ever before, breakthrough innovation is only possible through an ecosystem of interdependent industry leaders who know how to work together across the global value chain. As such, INPRO is an excellent fit for us and serves as yet another example of how we engage in the kind of collaboration that is necessary to fuel and accelerate automotive innovation. In addition, we see opportunity to draw from our experience with INPRO to help our corporate innovation and R&D organization realize technology breakthroughs with customers in other industries and markets.”

The transaction is expected to close before the end of 2011 and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. No additional terms are available for disclosure.

For additional information on SABIC’s automotive solutions, go to www.sabicauto.com or www.sabic-ip.com. For technical product inquiries, please contact us at www.sabic-ip.com/prtechinquiry.

About SABIC Innovative Plastics
SABIC Innovative Plastics is a leading, global supplier of engineering thermoplastics with an 80-year history of breakthrough solutions that solve its customers’ most pressing challenges. Today, SABIC Innovative Plastics is a multi-billion-dollar company with operations in more than 35 countries and approximately 9,000 employees worldwide. The company continues to lead the plastics industry with customer collaboration and continued investments in new polymer technologies, global application development, process technologies, and environmentally responsible solutions that serve diverse markets such as automotive, electronics, building & construction, transportation, and healthcare. The company’s extensive product portfolio includes thermoplastic resins, coatings, specialty compounds, film, and sheet. SABIC Innovative Plastics (www.sabic-ip.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).

About Saudi Basic Industries Corporation
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) ranks among the world’s top petrochemical companies, and is a global market leader in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene, advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers. SABIC manufactures with a global footprint in Saudi Arabia, the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. The company operates in more than 40 countries across the world with 33,000 employees worldwide. It has significant research resources with 18 dedicated Technology & Innovation facilities in Saudi Arabia, the USA, the Netherlands, Spain, India and China. SABIC recorded a net income of SR 21.59 billion(US$ 5.73 billion) in 2010, and sales revenues totaled SR 152 billion (US$ 40.5 billion).

About INPRO
INPRO is a joint venture of Daimler, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, and Volkswagen. The Federal State of Berlin, where the company has been based since its founding in 1983, is also a shareholder. The joint venture aims to drive innovations in automotive production and transfer results of its research to industrial applications. INPRO has approximately 100 employees, of which 70 directly engaged in developing new concepts in the fields of production technology, production planning and quality assurance for the automotive industry. INPRO’s applications laboratory and testing facility is located in Berlin. More information on INPRO and its range of services is available at www.inpro.de.

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* Trademarks of SABIC Innovative Plastics IP B.V.

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This release was published on openPR.