Possible subsidy cuts worry Saudi PCs.

摘要

Executives with Saudi petrochemical companies have expressed concerns about the competitiveness of the sector after the country's oil minister Ali al-Naimi said that officials in Riyadh were considering cuts to the country's energy subsidies. According to the International Monetary Fund, Saudi Arabia's gas subsidy cost the government J11.73B in 2014, a sum that the country can ill afford to spare amid the ongoing slump in oil prices. According to Mudaq al-Morished, CEO of National Industrialization Co. (also called Tasnee, a company whose interests include energy intensive businesses in petrochemicals and metals), officials will need to be careful not to damage the country's petrochemical industry. Calling a gas price increase of 10-15% "logical," Mr. al-Morsihed warned that anything more than that would "be detrimental to the chemical industry." He added that the company was already "cutting our costs across the board: consolidating businesses, improving performance in our plants, running our reliability better and reducing inventories."