Saturday, Jun 25, 2011
BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Saudi Arabia's western and southern regions are seeing rising prices of bagged cement and the emergence of a black market, Saudi-based Al Riyadh daily reports Saturday, citing local cement producers.
The imbalance between supply and demand is likely to continue in some areas due to the fact that a number of cement producers have very low inventories, the paper quotes Ahmad Zugail, chief executive of Najran Cement Co., as saying.
Zamil Al Mokrin, general manager of Eastern Province Cement Co., who expects total cement demand this year to reach 50 million tons, attributed the rising prices to a shortage in fuel supplies at some cement companies, and growing demand due to new residential and governmental projects, Al Riyadh reports.
Moreover, the rush of consumers to overbuy quantities beyond their needs raised demand further and prompted some distributors to exploit the situation and hike prices and create a black market, Mokrin said, according to the newspaper.
Newspaper website: http://www.alriyadh.com/2011/06/25/article644926.html
-By Beirut Bureau, Zawya Dow Jones; +961-1-985 757; BeirutZDJ@zawya.com
Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Co.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
25-06-11 0827GMT
