Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The Saudi Arabian giant with market capitalization of USD 100 billion is launching a logistic hub in Kutno, central Poland, which will serve for all the countries in the CEE region.
Sabic, the biggest company listed on Saudi Arabian stock exchange with market capitalization bigger than the revenues of the Polish budget, is launching operations in Kutno. On January 1 2007 it will launch a logistic hub where polymer products will be imported from Saudi Arabia. According to a long-term agreement, the services for Sabic will be rendered by Dutch Nijhof Wassink, which has been present in Poland since 1990. Due to the Saudi project, Nijhof Wassink will develop its storage houses in Kutno where it has a hall of 3,000 square meters, silos containers, and an outside storage.
“In the first stage, we will make use of the existing infrastructure but it will be necessary to develop the plant. In 2007, Sabic wants to import 150,000 tons of products every year while four years later it is supposed to be 350,000 tons. According to preliminary estimates, we will need 15,000 square meters of storages and another 15,000 of outside surface. The agreement was signed last Thursday and it is too early to give precise data”, Maciej Pinczak, the managing director of Nijhof Wassink in Poland said.
The hub will operate for Central and Eastern European countries.
“In May, Sabic launched a sales office in Hungary. Jointly with the logistic hub in Poland, it will be a platform for CEE”, Hubert Guth, the head of the sales department of Sabic in Europe said.
So far, the products sold in Poland by Sabic have been imported from the plants in Germany and the Netherlands and a storage house in Antwerp.
“The Kutno hub will take over the role of the Antwerp storage house for the countries from our region”, Piotr Kwiecien, the managing director of Sabic Polska added.
In his opinion, thanks to the project, Sabic sales in Poland will grow by 30-40 percent. Today, the company has several to a dozen percent in different segments of the petrochemical market. The company has 18 plants in Saudi Arabia and one plant in Germany and the Netherlands. It employs 2,450 people in Europe and 16,000 worldwide.