Profit-making Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC), with nearly a quarter century of experience in its field, will offer its expertise to Syrian petrochemical industries in a show of Arab brotherhood.

The company, which produces ammonia, methanol and urea, is sending an engineering team to Syria to determine what assistance companies there would need, general manager Dr Mustafa Al Sayed told Syrian charge d’Affaires Mohammed Shaker Al Khayat who was visiting the GPIC facilities in the Sitra industrial area.
GPIC was also committed to participating in the Damascus International Fair which is held annually, said Dr Al Sayed.
Syrian interest in GPIC expertise follows successful performances the company has recorded since its inception in 1979.
Continuing its profitable run, it reported a $66 million net profit for 2003 and decided to pay $60 million in dividends to its shareholders. The company had made an operating profit of $51 million during 2002.
GPIC is jointly owned by the Bahraini government, Petrochemicals Industries Company (PIC) of Kuwait and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic).
Its first project was the construction of plants to produce ammonia and methanol with a daily output of 1,000 tonnes in addition to power and other utility facilities. In 1989 the ammonia and methanol plants’ daily production capacity was raised to 1,200 tonnes and in 1998 a urea granular plant was opened with a daily output of 1,700 tonnes.
In 1995 the company received the ISO 9002 quality assurance standard certification for its manufacturing operations of ammonia and methanol while its urea production operations won a quality certfication in 1999, less than a year after the commissioning of the plant.   GPIC was declared the best operating company in the Arabian Gulf in 1996 for its high levels of production, safety, environmental standards and quality assurance.
The urea plant design fully complies with the strictest environmental laws, the company having selected the latest urea granule manufacturing technology on sealant layers in preference to the granulation tower technology despite the higher cost.  With the technology it adopted it was able to reduce urea dust from the urea granule-manufacturing unit.
The company also achieved the environment management standard ISO 14001 in late 1999 for all of its operations.
Last December, GPIC was presented with the Chemical Industry Safety Trophy 2003 for the safest managed petrochemical plant in the world by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) in the UK.    
The trophy is considered the highest international award to the chemical industries sector in occupational safety and health.
Oil Minister and GPIC chairman Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, commenting on the 2003 performance, said the profits came because of efforts management had made towards rationalising expenses, reducing cost and developing productivity.
In addition to keeping ammonia, urea and methanol plants’ production to the highest levels, the company had done well in maintaining quality, health, safety and environmental levels.
A record operational run of 941 days was achieved until June 19, 2003, and the methanol plant continued its operations for 931 days until June 27 of the year. Additionally a record two million man-hours without a lost-time accident or the equivalent of 590 days was achieved by the company’s workers and 236,000 manhours or the equivalent of 127 days by the contractors’ workers, aggregating the total manhours without lost-time accidents to 2.3 million.
According to Dr Al Sayed, the Arab states’ share of fertiliser production and raw materials represents about seven to 12 per cent of the global output
Speaking at a recent meeting of the Arab Fertilisers Association in Libya, he said Arab states faced many challenges stemming from poor intra-Arab trade and the World Trade Organisation requirements in the field of environment. There was also increased competition in global markets following the opening of markets and liberalisation. To face all these challenges, joint economic activities and continuous co-ordination were essential for a better future for the industry, he said.