APICORP held its 2nd Board of Directors meeting for the year 2006

02/07/2006 – The Board of Directors of Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP), – an affiliate of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) – held its 2nd meeting for the year 2006 on Saturday 1st July in Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt.

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Abdullah Al-Zaid representative of the government of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and was attended by representatives of the governments of member states namely: Egypt, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Algeria, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, in addition to Mr. Ahmad Bin Hamad Al-Nuaimi, the Chief Executive and General Manager of APICORP.

Mr. Al-Nuaimi declared that the Board of Directors discussed matters on the agenda and reviewed reports on the Corporation’s business activities related to finance and investment. In addition, the Board of Directors also reviewed the interim financial results for the period from January to 30 June 2006, which disclosed that the expected net the profit for the first six months of the year 2006 would total US$ 41 million, compared to US$ 28.4 million for the same period of last year, while total assets were expected to reach US$ 2,607million, compared to US$ 2,341 million for the same period of the past year. In addition, total shareholders equity was expected to top US$ 922 million compared to US$ 848 million for the same period of the year before.

Mr. Al-Nuaimi added that the Board also reviewed the 2005 annual reports and financial statements of the twelve Arab joint ventures companies in which APICORP holds equity share interests. The fair value of these projects as at 31 December 2005 totalled US$ 234 million. These projects are located in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Libyan Jamahiriya, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan, and operate in the fields of : drilling and related services, seismic services, extraction of LPG, production of polyethylene, ethylene glycol, polypropylene, methyl tertiary butyl ether, aromatics, purified terephathalic acid, polyester fibres, linear alkyl benzene, carbon black, urea, NPK fertilizer, storage of petroleum products, and production acrylic fiber.

APICORP investments portfolio in the above projects disclosed that the rise in energy prices had positively impacted the revenues of these companies’ results for 2005, resulting in a US$ 16.3 million as an APICORP’s share of the total dividend distributed by these companies, compared to US$ 10.7 million for the year 2004.

APICORP’s Chief Executive and General Manager added that, during the period from January to June of this year, the project and trade finance activities of the Corporation were so exuberant, resulting in APICORP’s participation in project and trade finance facilities totalling US$ 4.8 billion, with APICORP final take of US$ 465 million. These loans were extended to petroleum projects in a number of member states including Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The activities of these projects range between the purchase of oil and gas tankers, the construction of refineries and petrochemical plants, in addition to the finaning of Arab oil exports to foreign countries.