SABIC Invests in Eastern Europe with expanded Moscow Sales Office and Dedicated Team to Support Regional Customers

BERGEN OP ZOOM, The Netherlands – January 27, 2009 – At the Interplastica 2009 show, the SABIC family of plastics businesses, including SABIC Innovative Plastics and SABIC Europe, is demonstrating its strong commitment to serving the Eastern European market by introducing its expanded and dedicated sales team, all based in a new SABIC sales office in Moscow. SABIC Innovative Plastics, in the region for over a year, together with the new resources of the SABIC Europe team can now offer customers regional expertise with a broad understanding of their unique needs. The activities of the new sales office will extend across the CIS states as well as the Baltic States.

Geert Drummen heads the SABIC Eastern Europe team, and SABIC Innovative Plastics will continue to be lead by Juri Bercovitz. The teams will focus on providing material solutions for key market sectors including: automotive, building and construction, electrical and lighting, packaging, pipe and infrastructure and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) film. SABIC, which is exhibiting at Interplastica for the second consecutive year, will showcase a broad array of high-performance materials targeting these sectors at Stand B08/C09, Hall 8.

“SABIC Eastern Europe is ready for business,” said Hubert Guth, SABIC Europe’s Director Sales Offices. “Having a dedicated sales organization will allow us to improve services to customers and ensure efficient processes. We have great products and an experienced team ready to begin work with customers throughout the dynamic Eastern European region. We look forward to helping customers effectively compete in the global environment with a comprehensive product portfolio, with smooth and flexible transaction processes but also with, application development and processing optimization.”

Juri Bercovitz, Regional Manager Eastern Europe, SABIC Innovative Plastics, echo’s the comments of Guth, “In the last two years we proved to be a reliable and committed world class supplier for engineering plastics in Russia and CIS. Our market share and customer base is growing rapidly, and with SABIC Europe’s additional local resources, our depth of expertise in this region is a great value for our customers.”

Eastern Europe is a globally important emerging market with an annual GDP of 6 percent. The areas of focus for SABIC’s plastic businesses are showing strong demand for materials solutions. According to Geert Drummen, there are interesting opportunities for high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) in the pipe sector, as well as for LLDPE for film applications.

In 2007, SABIC Innovative Plastics launched its new Russian Automotive division to accelerate market and application development activities for the rapidly expanding automotive industry in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent Sates (CIS). “We want to be a strong player in this segment,” says Bercovitz, “Ernst and Young reports that despite adverse global financial market developments, Russia’s economy grew by 8.1% in 2007 and the Russian passenger car market grew by 36%, with more than 2.4 million vehicles sold. Drummen adds, “More than 10 global automotive players plan to establish manufacturing facilities in Russia, and as a result car production in Russia is expected to increase by 45% over the next four years, growing from approximately 2.1 million to 3.1 million units. In sales terms, Russia already holds the sixth position in the passenger car market globally and is third in Europe.” The area covered by SABIC’s new sales organization offers numerous opportunities and SABIC is ready to meet the challenges. With a broad portfolio of products such as high-performance resins, composites and sheet products in structural glazing, wire and cable, cladding and pipe, and an extensive range of polyethylenes and polypropylenes, SABIC is positioned to help its customers with solutions across many industries where significant investments are being made - power stations, electrical installations, construction projects and utility infrastructure.

An example of SABIC’s ambition to grow in these markets is the new bimodal HDPE plant in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The plant started up successfully in January and covers a production of 250kt per annum. The new HDPE plant is completely dedicated to the production of high performance HDPE pipe grades, that meet PE 100+ requirements and beyond. Meeting the latest and highest market demands requires state of the art technology. SABIC is using an innovative production technology that is top of the bill within the HDPE pipes market.

For additional information on SABIC please visit www.sabic.com, www.sabic.ru and www.sabic-ip.com.

About SABIC:

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) is one of the world’s 10 largest petrochemicals manufacturers. The company is among the world’s market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers, as well as the fourth-largest polyolefin producer.

SABIC reported a net profit of SR 20.2 billion (US$ 5.4 billion) for the first nine months of 2007, an increase of 42 percent, compared to the SR 14.2 billion (US$ 3.9 billion) net profit in the same period last year. For the third quarter (3Q) of 2007, the company reported a profit of SR 7.4 billion, (US$ 1.9 billion) an increase of 37 percent over the 3Q-2006 profit of SR 5.4 billion (US$ 1.4 billion) and an increase of 14% over the 2Q-2007 profit of SR 6.5 billion (US$ 1.7 billion). Current assets at the end of 2006 were SR 74 billion (US$ 19.7 billion).

SABIC operates six interlinked strategic business units: Basic Chemicals, Intermediates, Specialty Products, Polymers, Fertilizers and Metals. In 2007 SABIC Innovative Plastics was launched as a global supplier of specialty plastics. SABIC has significant research resources and has dedicated Research and Technology and application centers in the Middle East, the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific with customers in more than 100 countries. SABIC has more than 30,000 employees worldwide.

In Saudi Arabia, the company has 20 world-scale complexes and 19 of them are located at the two largest sites – in Al-Jubail and in Yanbu. Some of these complexes are operated with multi-national joint venture partners such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Mitsubishi Chemicals. SABIC produces in 23 locations in the Americas and 15 locations in Asia-Pacific. In Europe, SABIC has 15 production sites. There is an additional site in Turkey. SABIC’s overall production has increased from 27 million metric tons in 2001 to 49.1 million metric tons in 2006.

Headquartered in Riyadh, SABIC was founded in 1976 when the Saudi Arabian Government decided to use the hydrocarbon gases associated with its oil production as the principal feedstock for production of chemicals, polymers and fertilizers. The Saudi Arabian Government owns 70 percent of SABIC shares with the remaining 30 percent held by private investors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

About SABIC Innovative Plastics

SABIC Innovative Plastics is a leading, global supplier of engineering thermoplastics with a 75-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 25 countries and over 10,500 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), one of the world’s top five petrochemicals manufacturers.

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* Trademarks of SABIC Innovative Plastics IP BV.

Media Note: The proper name of the company is SABIC Innovative Plastics, and excludes any abbreviations or variations when referring to the company. As an acronym, SABIC should be all caps whenever it appears in print.

About SABIC Europe:

SABIC Europe BV (Sittard, The Netherlands) is a SABIC subsidiary which includes all SABIC’s polymers and base chemicals activities in Europe and employs around 3,300 people. SABIC has a European sales offices network, logistic hubs and three petrochemical sites in Europe: at Geleen (The Netherlands), Teesside (United Kingdom) and at Gelsenkirchen (Germany). SABIC Europe produces 3 million metric tons per annum of polyolefins* and
5.7 million metric tons of basic chemicals, mainly for the European market.

* including the projected numbers for the SABIC UK Petrochemicals 2008 LDPE plant.

Kevin Noels
Marketing Solutions
Lelyweg 6
4612 PS, Bergen op Zoom
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 164 317 011
E-Mail: knoels@marketingsolutions.be

This release was published on openPR.