Boeing ends 717 production line
Boeing has announced plans to end production of the 717 airliner, a single-aisle, 100-seat aircraft, which is mostly used on short-haul, high-frequency routes.
The moves come as Boeing, struggling to regain its spot as the world’s leading jet maker, recently lost to European rival Airbus. Boeing said it would end production of the 717 in 2006, with the costs, including supplier termination expenses, spread through 2005 to 2007.
VW to cut jobs
Volkswagen (VW), Europe’s leading carmaker, is planning to cut several thousand jobs around the world in response to disappointing earnings in 2004, a report said.
Jobs would be axed in distribution, information technology and administration, said the Manager Magazine.
New FlexCrete units
US-based Headwaters Incorporated has completed the construction of two FlexCrete manufacturing facilities.
FlexCrete is a lightweight, fire-proof, cost-effective building product made using fly ash. Fly ash is a by-product produced when coal is burned in today’s modern electricity generating plants.
Up to 60 per cent of FlexCrete’s total volume is fly ash, replacing portland cement and sand that is used by traditional methods.
New LCD plant
Japan’s Sharp Corporation is planning to spend 150 billion yen ($1.45 billion) to build an advanced liquid crystal display (LCD) plant, aiming to boost production efficiency and keep up with fast-growing demand.
Sharp, the world’s largest maker of LCD televisions, said it planned to bring the new factory on line in October 2006. The plant will be located at Sharp’s flagship Kameyama production site in western Japan.
The Osaka-based company said it would use cutting-edge eighth-generation motherglass at the new factory, making it more cost efficient than Asian rivals that cut LCD panels from smaller fifth-, sixth- and seventh-generation glass plates. Bigger glass enables LCD makers to yield more panels from a single plate, lowering manufacturing costs.
Abraaj Capital’s acquisition
Abraaj Capital, a major private equity firm in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, has acquired 80 per cent of Jordan Aircraft Maintenance Limited (Joramco).
The shares were bought from Royal Jordanian Investment Limited for a total consideration of $55.1 million, Abraaj said.
Jordan’s government-owned airline will retain a 20 per cent stake in the aircraft maintenance company following the buyout.
Gulf Piping wins contract
The Abu Dhabi-based Gulf Piping Company has won an $18-million procurement, fabrication, erection and mechanical completion contract from ABB Lummus Global BV for a project based in Russia.
“The contract includes fabrication of two modules for the Molikpaq tie-in project of the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd (SEIC) that is developing offshore oil and gas fields on the north-eastern shelf of Sakhalin Island,” said a spokesman for the UAE company. The Molikpaq project will install the modules on the Molikpaq platform (also called PA-A platform) to enable the delivery of crude oil and natural gas to Sakhalin Island by separate oil and gas pipelines.
Small profit rise for SEC
Saudi Electricity (SEC) posted net profits of SR1.42 billion ($378.7 million) last year, a rise of just 1 per cent, after fourth-quarter losses dented its figures, the company said.
In a brief statement SEC said unaudited figures showed the firm lost SR74 million in the last three months of 2004 compared with healthy profits of SR532 million in the same period a year earlier.
