Muscat - Salalah Mills Co is planning to construct new silos with a capacity of 120,000 metric tonnes (MT) at a cost of about RO3.5mn.
"Due to the unavailability of land at the Raysut Industrial Estate to store more wheat in open storages, known as bunkers, the board of directors had approved construction of new silos with a capacity of 120,000MT on a part of the land used now as a bunker. The expected cost of the new project is about RO3.5mn," said Ahmed bin Abdullah Saeed al Rawas, chairman of Salalah Mills in the company report submitted to the MSM on Thursday.
Rawas added that the new project is expected to be operational by the middle of 2014, and it will allow the company to take advantage of periods of low wheat prices.
Salalah Mills announced recently that it has concluded a wheat-shipment contract to purchase 30,000MT of Russian wheat through a global tender, for delivery in September 2013. Salalah Mills owns the largest flour mill in Oman with a production capacity of 1,500MT per day.
The net profit of Salalah Mills increased 4.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 to RO1.39mn from RO1.33mn in the same period of 2012, according to a company's filing with the MSM.
Total sales of the Salalah Mills group increased 39.2 per cent to RO16.96mn in the first three months of 2013 from RO12.18mn in the same period last year.
According to a company report, due to the increasing demand for products of Salalah Macaroni, a subsidiary of Salalah Mills, the management had signed a contract with the Italian company, FAVA, for supply of a new pasta line, which cost about RO3mn and is expected to be in operation by the middle of next year.
© Muscat Daily 2013
