NATPET’s IPO in Tadawul ‘still on the table’, says CEO

Floating the shares of National Petrochemical Industrial Company (NATPET) in the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) is “still on the table”, but needs cooperation from all partners, CEO and Managing Director Khalid Zagzoog told Argaam in an exclusive.

“NATPET may sell its shares in an initial public offering (IPO) during the next board term,” he said.

The company received SAR 800 million in insurance compensation, due to the fire that erupted in its plant.

The funds announced previously by Alujain, which owns a 57% stake in NATPET, were the amounts received by the end of Q3 2019.

The company has recently received another amount and is expecting more collections in January, which will bring the total amount received to $320 million (SAR 1.2 billion).

The funds received are recognized under amounts under account. They will be included in financial statements following the insurance firm’s approval of the final allocation, Zagzoog added, expecting this allocation to be announced next month.

Elsewhere, maintenance works at NATPET’s plant were originally expected to be finalized on Nov. 21, 2019. However, this date was rescheduled to January 2020, due to delays in the delivery of materials.

Accordingly, the company seized that opportunity, and boosted its production capacity by almost 60,000 tons to 460,000 tons.

“The capacity addition is forecast to raise profit by SAR 50-60 million,” Zagzoog noted.

NATPET, which currently operates in China, Turkey, Europe and Latin America, is eying to break into North America, the top official underlined, noting that Saudi Arabia is NATPET’s priority market, but local consumption is modest.

In October 2018, a fire broke out at NATPET’s plant in Yanbu, killing 1 worker and injuring 11 others, Argaam reported.

Read: Worker dies after fire hits NATPET petrochemical refinery in Yanbu

For Alujain’s financial statements, NATPET’s external auditor refused to prepare the company’s quarterly figures. Therefore, the required papers were delivered to Alujain’s external auditor.

Meanwhile, Alujain and NATPET will face a new challenge with regard to the upcoming board elections, as NATPET’s board elections will precede that of Alujain.

Alujain’s nominees to NATPET board could not be elected in Alujain’s board. “We’re in talks with the Ministry of Commerce and Investment to hold Alujain’s board elections first,” he concluded.