GPIC, a leading petrochemical firm in the Middle East, posted $138 million in net profits in 2010, an increase of $33 million over 2009, Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, Advisor to HRH the Prime Minister on Oil and industrial Affairs and GPIC chairman has said.
The company was also successful in winning a number of prestigious awards during the year, the most important of which was the International Safety Award received from the British Safety Council for the third successive year in addition to the Chemical Sector Award received from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), UK.
The GPIC chairman expressed his satisfaction for the remarkable achievements of the company during 2010 which were represented by the continuation of operation and productivity at the same levels of quality and efficiency while maintaining the highest levels of safety and security.
He added the company was able to maintain its impressive safety record by registering 12,147,233 working hours without lost time accidents for its workers and the Contractors’ workers.
The company’s safety records have been highlighted at local and international levels especially following the completion in 2010 of numerous projects and acquisition of a number of modern and sophisticated equipment that contributed to the enhancement of occupational safety, health and protection of the environment for both the employees and equipment. Moreover, the introductive of an intensive programme was a primary factor behind enhancement of occupational safety and health for all the employees.
Meanwhile, Abdul Rahman Jawahery, GPIC president said the company continued in 2010 to make significant achievements that resulted in reduction of expenditure and increased production that led to making higher levels of profits in spite of the challenges facing the petrochemical industry worldwide.
He added that the company completed during the year the plant turnaround during which numerous equipment, systems and facilities were replaced by more advanced items to ensure more safety and reliability. During the process, all the major equipment and the catalysts were replaced in the plants.
Such investment resulted in achieving a plant utilisation factor of 105.8 per cent while the operational continuity factor achieved a level of 100 per cent enabling the company to produce a total of 1,475,892 tonnes of ammonia, urea and methanol.
The urea plant achieved the highest annual output since its commissioning in 1998 totalling 629,371 tonnes during 2010.
Jawahery said all the plants were able to achieve the production targets for the year with an increased daily output of 5 per cent as a result of the continuous upgrading of the plants and increased reliability thanks to the commissioning of the CO2 plant, which significantly contributed to limiting CO2 emissions. The plant currently recycles around 450 tonnes of CO2 daily for use in manufacture operations.
He added the profits achieved were due to the sincere efforts made by the employees towards the continuous reduction of expenditure and production costs while developing the production levels in addition to the close co-operation with the marketers Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) of Saudi Arabia and Petrochemical Industries company of Kuwait, which significantly impacted the flow of exporting the company’s products. The company was able to ship a total of 1,133,618 tonnes of products on board 60 vessels.
Jawahery praised the tremendous efforts made by GPIC for the training of Bahrainis and development of the workforce with an achieved Bahrainisation level of 95 per cent by the end of the year, including the trainees. The year witnessed the enhancement of human resources’ efficiency and keeping abreast of technological and academic developments through the unprcedented transformation of the Training and Development Centre into a Leadership Academy and E-learning Centre.
