KUWAIT: The Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) achieved a net profit of KD 39 million (around USD 127 million) in the 2023-24 fiscal year ending last March, said PIC CEO Nadia Al-Hajji on Monday. In an interview with KUNA celebrating the 61st anniversary of establishing PIC due on Tuesday, Al-Hajji indicated that the aforementioned net profit announcement came by the relentless efforts of the company to achieve further growth despite the pressures affecting prices of petrochemical products worldwide. She revealed that PIC managed to conserve expenditure and increase profits via a series of initiatives in the last fiscal year, noting that the company was currently coordinating with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) on the Olefins IV project to gain the latter side’s approval.
The strategic project includes an international-standard petrochemical complex producing "ethylene, polyethylene, ethylene glycol, and specialized petrochemical products.” Al-Hajji revealed that PIC was eager to boost partnerships with global companies through its mid and long-term strategies, which include the acquisition of established factories and shares of companies. She revealed that the company had also set mid and long-term strategies for "green petrochemical” expansion to lessen the impact on the environment and rationalize consumption of natural resources to boost the economic growth in Kuwait.
Al-Hajji also mentioned that the company was studying several initiatives for recycling plastic waste in cooperation with KPC and other entities including Kuwait municipality, the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development, and others. She noted that recycling strategies include repurposing plastic waste via mechanical or chemical means to fabricate viable products.
Regarding human resources development, Al-Hajji said that PIC had sponsored the first-of-its-kind initiative in the oil sector to develop the skills of youth who represent 40 percent of the company’s working force. This came to realize PIC’s 2040 strategy, she affirmed, adding that a youth empowerment committee was established in 2020 with rotating members chosen annually to keep things fresh and forward moving. Back to the company’s successes, Al-Hajji pointed out that with the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year, the company had ended 16 years of successfully implementing the Six Sigma plan aimed at improving quality of technical and administrative operations as well as fully utilizing human resources and preliminary resources. The plan improved productivity in factories and employees, bringing profits and decreasing operational costs, said Al-Hajji who noted that the accumulative profits of PIC since implementing the Six Sigma plan since 2007 had reached USD 267 million. On PIC’s 2040 strategy, Al-Hajji pointed out that the company updated the plan, which was based on three criteria including firstly, the growth of basic petrochemical products via increasing manufactories in and outside of Kuwait through acquisition to reach 14 million tons of production by 2040.
The second criterion focused on expanding products in cooperation with international partners to reach one million tons by 2040 with 15 percent of said products aimed at the market in Kuwait, she revealed. She noted that the third criterion was to boost human resources and increase training to reach optimal results, which would create more job opportunities for Kuwaitis in the country and abroad. Meanwhile, Al-Hajji said that PIC’s polypropylene factory had achieved 2023-24 the second largest annual production rate since its inception in 1997, reaching 153,000 metric ton with a production capacity of 98 percent.
More on the PIC achievements, Al-Hajji said that 11.34 million safe work hours were logged with no accidents, wasted time, or environmental accidents from 2012 until 2023-24. She also revealed that PIC established in 2017 the Kuwait Vietnam Petrochemical Company (KVPC), an establishment aimed at production, export, and import of polypropylene. -KUNAA