The GPCA Plastics Summit in Dubai delivered a star turn out of industry leaders and celebrated the lead Saudi Arabia is taking in innovative product development.
The second Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) Plastics Summit held in Dubai in early April brought together major industry leaders to discuss the critical issues and challenges facing the plastics industry in the region.
This year’s summit focused on “Growth through Technology and Innovation” and provided an opportunity to reflect upon the GPCA’s future role in providing a platform to support the growth and sustainable development of the petrochemical and chemical industry in the region.
Nearly 400 key decision makers and thought leaders from the regional and international petrochemicals and plastic converting industry came to Dubai for the high-profile summit. This year’s summit saw a record increase of 30% in attendance.
Tackling the importance of plastic innovation, Moayyed Al Qurtas, vice chairman and CEO of TASNEE and chairman of the GPCA plastics committee, said: “It is critical for the industry to focus on the environment and look for ways to improve the standard of living for humanity.
Plastics have the advantage of recyclability at a relatively low-cost and can combat shortages of food and drinking water. Remarkable advances in plastic innovation can lead to a sustainable, environmentally sound and socially responsible industry.”
Al Qurtas discussed the timeline for the development of the global plastics industry, and also the contributions made by plastics. He highlighted the driving forces of plastics in the market.
“The main drivers are the cost, performance and environment friendly products,” said Al Qurtas. “There is nothing called a “back office” product. Each plastic is unique and has its own niche; we need to find a niche for each plastic,” he explained.
The debate in media surrounding plastic and its contribution to pollution are not based on scientific arguments, explained Al Qurtas.
“Plastic harming the environment theory is not based on scientific experiences, as in many cases it is because of the irresponsibility of people,” he said. “Plastic can be recycled many times.
In the advanced world, countries are using plastic because of its many advantages, but in less developed countries, they are considering banning the use of plastic bags.”
Ziad Al-Labban, president and CEO of Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company “Petro Rabigh”, summarised the reasons behind foreign investors flocking toward the region to invest in the downstream sector.
Al-Labban said that GCC countries and their neighbours have over 50% of the world’s oil reserves and 40% of the world’s gas reserves. “We are located between the current and future large plastics demand centres of the world,” said Al-Labban.
“Having the hydrocarbon resource base and proximity to markets provides the right ingredients to make this region the hub for plastics development,” Al-Labban added.
Product development centres, on the other hand, are important catalysts for the development of the petrochemical industry.
“A number of product development centres were established in the region including Petro Rabigh’s centre on the west coast of Saudi Arabia. Such centres support the development of downstream technologies,” Al-Labban explained.
“Another example is SABIC’s plastics application development centre which is being established in the Riyadh Techno Valley research complex inside the King Saud University. This is in addition to the 16 product and technology centres with over 1 400 scientists which SABIC has worldwide,” Al-Labban noted.
“The future success of the Gulf region’s rapidly expanding downstream sector depends on collaborative efforts by those in the sector,” said Al-Labban, while emphasising that all the ingredients are in place and being developed to strengthen the region’s development as a hub for plastics development.
Al-Labban talked also about the development of conversion parks like Abu Dhabi Polymers Park and Rabigh Conversion Park. “More than 75% of Rabigh Conversion Park is already filled,” said Al-Labban. “We are also thinking about launching a second phase of the conversion park,” he added.
These parks are attractive, Al-Labban said, because the Saudi government has provided incentives including land, tax exemption and low electricity cost for plastic converters who select Rabigh Conversion Park.
In day two of the summit, the emphasis has been on success stories from plastics converters, who have worked hard at ensuring innovation as a priority.
Dr. Hanna Saad, executive vice president, NAPCO Flexible Packaging Division from Saudi Arabia talked about developments and trends in flexible packaging from a GCC converter’s perspective.
“Environmental sustainability has been a key driver at all times. We believe in flexible packaging as it uses less material and energy than most other packaging modes and locally produced LLDPE generates the least carbon footprint,” says Dr Saad.
“We have down-gauged by 30 – 40% most of the packages that we supply to our customers and recycle all our waste and collect film waste from our major customers for recycling. We recycle in the range of 1 500 tonnes-per-month.”
Speaking about competition between plastics converters in the Middle East, Dr. Saad highlighted the rising of Turkish and Iranian converters as the main competitors for GCC convertors.
“Turkish converters produce twice as much resin compared to GCC countries,” said Dr. Saad.
“Currently, Turkish and Iranian converters are joining hands to develop conversion parks in North Turkey. Currently, Iranian resins suppliers are 10 years behind the GCC players, but the alliance with Turkish players will put them ahead of Saudi and other regional players,” Dr. Saad explained.
Focusing on environment management and its importance, Sasidhar Chidanamarri of Frost and Sullivan, said that the GCC waste generation is 80 million tonnes per year. Chidanamarri also talked about the major growth trends of the plastics industry.
“Key drivers for the growth of the plastics industry include growing populations, changing lifestyles with increasing purchase power among many others,” he said Chidanamarri.
“However, the drawbacks that need to be tackled are mainly the lack of sorting and segregation facilities, low public awareness, absence of robust regulations and poor implementation,” Chidanamarri added.
The second summit was an opportunity for leading plastics industry players to meet and to discuss common challenges facing them. It also proved to be an excellent platform for networking and exchanging ideas on how to face the current campaign against plastics producers.
GPCA Plastics Innovation Awards
The Second GPCA Plastics Summit was also the platform for the inaugural GPCA Plastics Innovation Awards 2011. The winners were selected by a high-profile jury, led by Moayyed Al Qurtas, vice chairman and CEO, TASNEE and chairman of the GPCA plastics committee and congratulated by Mohamed Al-Mady, chairman of the GPCA and SABIC vice chairman and CEO. The winners were:
• Green Vision from Saudi Arabia who won the award in the plastic products category for their innovative and eco-friendly turf system that has been developed locally to replace real grass in regions affected by droughts.
• Zamil Plastics, also from Saudi Arabia, won the award in the processing and conversion category for developing a holistic system to convert non-plastic parts to plastic parts to improve cost position for customers.
• Taghleef Industries from Dubai won the award in the plastics and environment category for its BOPLA sustainable packaging film, which is a bio-plastic, obtained from the fermentation of sugars contained in various kinds of plants.
• Dr. Mohammed Naser Alghamdi and Krishna Rajan, both from Yanbu Industrial College, KSA, won the award in the Talents In Plastics category along with US$5000 in prize money for their development of ecologically friendly, completely bio-degradable bio composites materials, based on date-palm fibre.
