Fuel shortage delays Yanbu Cement lines

Yanbu Cement has been hampered by fuel shortages.

RELATED ARTICLES: Yanbu and Qassim Cement expect Q2 profits hike | Yanbu Cement Q1 profits expected to fall 17.8% | Fuel shortages caused by Emarat missed payment

Yanbu Cement Company will delay the start of new production lines due to a shortage of oil and natural gas to power the facility.

“The opening of the schedule will depend on the timing of this allocation,” the company told investors in a note on the Tadawul stock exchange.

Yanbu Cement, based in the northern industrial city, has undertaken an expansion plan for its ageing facilities to increase capacity from 3.6m metric tonnes to 7m metric tonnes. The new production lines were scheduled to begin production at the end of this month.

It is the second time this year that the company – based in Yanbu, one of the country’s centres for industrial manufacture - has delayed its scheduled production due to fuel shortage. In April, three lines with a combined capacity of 4,000 tonnes were stopped due to a lack of fuel, resuming operations a month later. The total cost to the company was estimated at SAR 12.7m.

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Cement Plants production will be affected largely due to HFO shortage across the Kingdom.This may be the first time in S   1 Comments Read more comments »

The company, like fellow listed rival manufacturers, wants to capitalise on the increasing demand for the building material on the back of high construction activity across Saudi Arabia.

Net profits for the first half of 2011 rose 6% to SAR 251m.

Meanwhile, the country’s chief financial regulator has fined Saudi Cable Company and Red Sea Housing Services for incomplete financial statements for last year.

The Capital Markets Authority has charged Saudi Cable SAR 50,000 for breaching (a) Article IX of the rules of corporate governance from not including a report from the board of directors in this area.

It also imposed the same value fine on Red Sea Housing Services, a provider of temporary accommodation, for sub-paragraph (22) of paragraph (b) of Article XXVII of the Listing Rules, as “the report did not contain its Board of Directors annex within the annual financial statements”.