A senior official of Bahrain Aluminium Extrusion Company (Balexco) has lamented the rise in metal prices saying it had upset usual sales patterns and caused “severe” competition among extruders.

Balexco CEO Jasim Mohammed Seyadi said the constant upward price movement caused markets to perform in “non-uniform trends,” contradicting forecasts made at the beginning of the financial year. “In the last four to six months the price of the metal has been on the rise whereas demand has reduced, resulting in severe competition between all extruders,” he said. Seyadi however added that despite the situation, Balexco was able to achieve good sales and post good profits in the recent past.

Alba is a major supplier of billets.

According to details supplied by Balexco, the company had a turnover of approximately $74 million in 2010 against $66 million in the previous year. The company generated a net profit of $7.2 million against $6.2 million in 2009. “In the current financial year (2011), the unaudited figures show that the organisation has already crossed $59 million,” it said in mid-November.

Expansions

Balexco will be completing soon its $21.3 million project to expand its plant in the Sitra Industrial Zone. The project consists of two parts, a $9.3 million anodising unit and a $12 million aluminium extrusion line.

The advanced anodising unit is designed to produce about 6,000 tonnes of anodised aluminium annually, a 67 per cent increase over the current production levels. The new extrusion line will increase production capacity of extruded aluminium by about 33 per cent from 24,000 tonnes to 32,000 tonnes annually.

Seyadi said the expansion was aimed at meeting the growing levels of demand locally, regionally and internationally. He pointed out that Balexco products were used on a large scale in many foreign projects with 70 per cent of the company’s output going to the Gulf and Arab markets and the remainder consumed locally.

“It should be noted that Balexco achieved steady positive revenues of between 20 per cent and 25 per cent over the past five years and that the company is the fourth largest aluminium extrusion operation in the Mena region in terms of production today,” he said.

Balexco produces aluminium extrusions in different finishes of powder coated and anodised profiles suitable to meet a wide variety of product segments.

One of the services the company provides is technical support to customers to ensure they use the right product for the right applications. The company also has a special fabrication unit within its Sitra premises that offers thermally insulated profiles through a process called thermal break crimping.

It also operates a retail outlet in the Bahrain area of Salmabad for off-the-shelf sales of small quantities of aluminium profiles and related gaskets or accessories.