APC posts record-high output, sales in first nine months of 2020

AMMAN — The Arab Potash Company (APC) hit all-time production and sales highs in the first nine months of the current year despite the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, Chairman Jamal Sarayreh said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Jordan News Agency, Petra, Sarayreh said the company’s gross output in the January-September period stood at 1.966 million tonnes while the volume of sold production was above 2 million tonnes by the end of the third quarter of the year.

The APC chairman said these record-high figures will reflect positively on the company’s 2020 profits and will boost its vertical and horizontal investment capacity.

Highlighting the company’s response to tough economic challenges resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, Sarayreh said the firm had doubled its efforts to cut production costs and control expenditures, noting that the company managed to bring the per-tonne cost of potash down by 6 per cent.

With regard to affiliates and subsidiaries, he indicated that they posted positive financial results during the third and fourth quarters of the year, which will reflect positively on their investments and future expansion plans.

Sarayreh noted that Kemapco, an APC fully-owned manufacturer of potash nitrate, posted an all-time sales high by the end of the third quarter of the current year, selling about 119,000 tonnes. 

He added that figure is 30 per cent higher than that recoded last year, noting that the value of this output was JD59 million, up by 24 per cent compared with the figure recorded in the corresponding period of 2019.

Kemapco’s net profit, he indicated, surged by 28 per cent by the end of the third quarter of the year. 

Outlining the performance of the Jordan-Bromine Company, another APC affiliate, Sarayreh said the company saw higher sales at the end of September and managed to improve its profitability despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

He pointed out that the APC and its affiliates injected a total of $780 million to the Kingdom’s hard currency reserve in the first nine months of this year.