Bahrain-based Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) has yet another bumper year with total production of petrochemicals rising to 1.475 million tons in 2010.
Abdul Rahman Jawahery, GPIC President said the production operations were exemplary during the year as the Company’s plants continued operating without any disruption. “This steady operational level was due to completing the regular shutdown maintenance early in the year which increased the plant reliability level and prevented any breakdowns or disruption of production operations,” he said.
He stressed that strict compliance with safety standards had a significant impact upon achieving this high and excellent performance.
“Owing to the outstanding efforts made by all the employees of the Company and the remarkable support of the Board of Directors led by Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Industrial and Oil Affairs it was possible to realize all the planned objectives,” he said.
The GPIC produced 429,000 tons of Ammonia, 629,000 tons of Urea and 417,000 tons of Methanol to taking the total output to 1,475,000 tons of petrochemicals. This output is considered as the highest production level since the inception of the company. Moreover, December was the month that witnessed the highest production of the urea plant in the history of the company of 60,000 metric tons and also achieving the highest daily output following the introduction of additional improvements to the plant.
In 2010 GPIC exported 60,000 tons of Ammonia, 611,000 tons of Urea and 427,000 tons of Methanol to bring the total exports to 1,098,000 tons of petrochemicals, thanks to reputation of the company and high quality of products and superior plant reliability.
“The Co2 unit, which was launched by GPIC in December 2009 and which is the first plant of its kind in the Middle East, successfully completed its first year of operations and contributed to increasing the output of the Methanol and Urea plants by approximately 60,000 tons during the year and with a 22% return on investment,” Jawahery said.
This project, he said, is consistent with the policies of the country’s leadership and the Economic Vision 2030 launched by His Majesty the King and the obligations of the Kingdom of Bahrain to combat the climate change phenomenon.
He said that the company would continue setting up more new and successful projects in the future as soon as the required quantities of natural gas are available for such new expansion projects.
The GPIC also achieved more than nine million man-hours without lost time accidents while the total number of hours achieved by the employees and contractors was more than 12 million man-hours without lost time accidents. “We were able to win the International Safety Award from the British Safety Council for the third successive time and the Chemical Sector Award from the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), UK,” he said.
During 2010 the company conducted around 300 training courses and programmes inside and outside the Kingdom attended by all the employees.
He underlined the importance of training and development as the best investment since they effectively contributed to increased productivity and safety of performance.
The company also unveiled its flagship training project called the Leadership and Learning Academy. The project was opened by Dr. Abdul Husain bin Ali Mirza, Minister of Oil and Gas Affair. The institute offers training facilities not only for the employees but also for their families and students of local schools, universities and institutes.
These tremendous efforts, he added, have enabled the Company to win the award for the outstanding organization in training and development of human resources from the Bahrain Ministry of Labour.
Jawahery while talking about the GPIC’s financial performance said that the employees’ efforts and cost rationalization efforts enabling the company to realize higher profits than what had been forecast with the results due to be presented to the next general meeting for approval.