Encouraged by its domestic and export sales and sensing higher demand for its products, the region’s leading plastic processor, Riyadh-based Rowad National Plastic Company Ltd, has said it will make further investments to expand output in the near future and make provision for new products that might have to be introduced.

The company only recently introduced innovative pails to contain a range of products such as paints, putty, inks, grease and ice cream.
“We have several new orders in hand. The delivery of 18-litre and 21-litre pails are going smoothly, and we have a large production capacity,” said general manager Mohammad Z Al Laabon.
With growing acceptance of its current range of pails, the company will introduce soon additional sizes.
Another Rowad operation - the recycling of industrial waste plastic, mostly polypropylene — is also performing well and capacity has been expanded to 12,000 tonnes per year (tpy) from some 7,500 tonnes more than a year ago.
 An automatic line, when fed with plastic scrap, crushes, washes, rinses and finally dries polypropylene chips. The chips are further pelletised, melted and extruded to produce plastic pellets. During the process the same plastic is filtered through six micromeshes in order to remove contamination. Rowad says the PP resin from this process is “second to virgin” in quality.
Rowad is an affiliate of National Industrialisation Company, a comglomerate with a number of manufacturing and trading companies within its fold. Rowad’s headquarters and Riyadh factory are located at Riyadh’s Second Industrial City while its Eastern Region facility is built in Dammam’s Second Industrial City.
Since 1995 when Rowad’s processing capacity was 10,000 tpy, the company has expanded from time to time and now boasts having a 40,000 tpy capacity. That capability takes care of various activities including injection moulding and the reprocessing of polypropylene resin. The company’s two plants, one in Riyadh and the other in Dammam, make sheets of polycarbonate (PC), acrylic, polyethylene and ABS as well as high-impact polystyrene sheets (HIPS) and general-purpose polystyrene.
The Rowad ABS is an engineering thermo-plastic. The product  is known as a terpolymer of acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene monomers. These three components contribute useful properties to the sheet. Acrylonitrile brings chemical resistance and heat stability, butadiene provides impact resistance and toughness and styrene ensures rigidity and easy processing.
Rowad’s ABS is made by extrusion technique using high-quality resins procured from one of the best resin producers from North America, Europe and the Far East. Thermoforming can be carried out over a wide temperature range in standard process and machines. ABS can be re-heated and performed without difficulty. Extruded sheets can also be produced with various gloss levels as per customer requirements.
 HIPS is a thermoplastic with elastomer as an additive that gives it good extrudability, high rigidity and impact strength at low temperature, high elongation, chemical resistance, dimensional stability and resistance to cracking and splitting. It can also be made more weather resistant and durable for outdoor applications as per customer requirements by the application of UV layers on both sides.
The plastic sheets are made of virgin resins and meet international quality standards and specifications, the company says. “The natural outcome of this is that there is widespread acceptance of our products in more than 20 countries of the Middle East, Europe and lately America.
“Today Rowad is the market leader in plastic sheets not only in Saudi Arabia but also in the Middle East,” the company claims.
It says its Lexan (a registered trade name of GE Plastic) polycarbonate sheets are a high-performance engineering thermoplastic thanks to its high clarity, resistance to heat and flame, dimensional stability and exceptionally high impact strength over a wide temperature range.
“Rowad PC sheets are virtually unbreakable and have 250 times the impact strength of glass while its weight is approximately half that of glass,” says Rowad operations manager Ashraf Shah. He adds that the sheets also provide up to 25 per cent better thermal insulation than single-pane glass. It also contains on each side a UV protection layer not less than 50 microns, which helps it maintain its colour and light transparency over a long period in a hot climate. The product is also backed by a 10-year warranty.
“Rowad PC sheets are popular for its wide range of applications such as skylight and domes, swimming pools and stadium roofing, doors, gates and window glazing,” says Shah.  “Rowad PC sheets are available in clear, opal white, bronze, green and blue colours and they also come as plain, textured, prismatic and bamboo forms. A recent addition was crystal. They are also available in different sizes with widths up to 2,050 mm and thickness between 2 and 13 mm.”
Describing other qualities of Rowad PC sheets, Shah says: “They are ideal for use in glazing and lighting applications because of their light weight, ease of handling and installation, high light transmission and better shatter-resistance than glass.
“Greater freedom of design is another advantage that plastic has over glass. It frees the designer from the restriction of flat window surfaces and permits curved or formed windows Although plastic glazing is usually more costly than glass initially, repeated replacement of glass with break-resistant plastic glazing makes it more economical and safer.”
Discussing Rowad’s acrylic sheets, he highlighted their crystal clarity and surface hardness, superior ability to overcome harsh weather conditions and good chemical resistance.
These properties, he said, enabled the sheets to be used in such areas as decorative sign work and display, and window glazing. They served as light diffusers and could be used for skylight effect. “Rowad’s acrylic sheets almost wiped out all imports of cast acrylic sheets for thermoforming applications and were very popular among distributors, traders and end users,” said Shah,
The official said Rowad polystyrene sheets were also well received. “Rowad is proud to be a sole producer of such sheets for several major local refrigerator manufacturers with whom we have long-term supply commitments.”
As part of diversification, Rowad set up an injection moulding section. “The sophisticated and fully automatic machines have high production capacity and fulfil high-tech components requirements. The section is intended to serve the market for engineering goods including automotive battery products.
“Rowad’s plastic products are being exported to all GCC and other Arab states on a regular basis,” says sales and marketing manager Fahad Al Zeer. He says the company hopes to achieve soon its target to export 25 per cent of its output.
From its inception, Rowad has worked very closely with a group of leading manufacturers and development consultants such as Sabic, Omipa and Bayer to expand its horizon and help improve the range of its services. It says the association improved after-sales services and made it the number one plastic sheet supplier in the region.
Rowad has said it is keen to help small entrepreneurs set up small-scale units where its plastic sheets would be used as raw material. These businessmen would have to use the right tools to add value to the sheets and develop markets for the products they make, it stresses. Among the ideas the company has presented for the consideration of businessmen are decorative sheets, engraving, hot stamping and further thermoforming.