The Saudi mining company Ma'aden yesterday started operations at its Ras Al Khair plant to produce diammonium phosphate.
The US$5.6 billion phosphate project is fully operational and the plant, which is 90km north of Jubail in the Eastern Province, will gradually increase its production to its designed capacity of 3 million tonnes a year, the state-run producer said in a filing to the Saudi bourse yesterday.
Ma'aden went public in 2008, raising 10.5bn Saudi riyals to start two projects: a phosphate joint venture with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), the world's largest petrochemicals maker; and an aluminium joint venture with Alcoa.
Ma'aden is attempting to enter the broad minerals farming sector and diversify beyond its current success as a gold miner, where it earns 95 per cent of its revenues from 9.2 million ounces of potential reserves.
The company has had two recent discoveries and plans to triple its gold production by 2015. Ma'aden sells gold on the spot market at the London Metal Exchange.
Ma'aden rallied 25.6 per cent last year, tracking gains in the spot gold market. Gold rose 30 per cent in the same period, underpinned by persistent doubts about the economic and financial health of the US and Europe and the measures governments and central banks might have to take to try to put things right.
Investors will be eyeing updates on the aluminium project. Stage one, expected to begin next year, consists of a smelter with an annual capacity of 740,000 tonnes and an aluminium rolling mill with an initial capacity of 380,000 tonnes a year.
Stage two, expected to start a year after stage one, consists of a bauxite mine with an annual capacity of 4 million tonnes and an alumina refinery with an annual capacity of 1.8 million tonnes.
Shares of Ma'aden and Sabic declined 0.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, to 28.90 riyals and 94.25 riyals on the Tadawul All-Share Index exchange yesterday.
halsayegh@thenational.ae
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
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