South Africa’s Specialist Mechanical Engineers (SME) is acquiring a 35 percent equity stake in Safewater Chemicals, a chloralkali plant in Abu Dhabi’s Mussafah industrial area. Valued at 60 million Emirati dirhams ($16.3 million), the plant is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Offsets Group (UOG) Program.
By purchasing the equity, SME is satisfying its obligations to the UOG program, reported Gulf News. The company’s commitments are part of a contract it signed with UAE Armed Forces for the supply of air conditioning services.
Safewater will have an annual output of 12,000 tons (tpa) of hydrochloric acid, 30,000 tpa of sodium hypochlorite and 8,000 tpa of caustic soda. The plant has a target date to go on stream set for mid-2003. The Al-Jaber Group is carrying out the construction of the facility.
The UAE Offsets Group was founded by the Abu Dhabi government in 1992, tasked with leveraging a significant portion of the cost of overseas defense procurements into investments in the economic development of the UAE. Each year since, the UOG has created numerous commercial ventures in partnership with the country's defense equipment supplies, their partners, and the local private sector, with among them several of the UAE's largest publicity quoted companies. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
