Dubai, Nov. 18th, 2006 (WAM)--- SAP Arabia has announced that the SaharaPetrochemical Company ("Sahara") has selected mySAP? ERP as the primarybackbone for the company's shared services to be deployed across its petrochemicalprojects. This will include affiliates like the Al Waha PetrochemicalCo, the polypropylene plant established in Al-Jubail Industrial City inthe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in June 2006.

By selecting mySAP? ERP, Sahara will leverage SAP's industry expertiseand broad functionalities to connect its various operations, enablingthe reduction of business process costs. SAP solutions will be rolledout at Sahara's affiliate plants in two phases, with the pilot roll outkicking off in January 2007. All baseline processes will be covered inthe first phase, while the second phase will deal with logistics, productionplanning and distribution modules.

"We wanted to capitalize on SAP's unmatched industry knowledge and market-leadingsolutions focused on the oil, gas and petrochemical industry," said EsamHimdy, executive president, Sahara Petrochemical Company. "This is a greenfield implementation and we want to adopt SAP's proven best practicesto meet our objectives of maintaining best-in-class performance for ourbusiness lines." "We want to build a flexible foundation that will allow us to remain competitive.

SAP Arabia has a well established network in the region and we believetheir focus on business solutions gives them an edge over their competitors,"added Himdy.

Sahara is also likely to deploy SAP's xMII, a composite application thatenables manufacturers and their production personnel to adapt to changeand respond rapidly to shifts in demand by providing real-time visibilityto manufacturing exceptions and performance variances. It extends SAP'smanufacturing and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software into plantoperations, providing end-to-end visibility, analytics and control ofmanufacturing processes, increasing responsiveness and efficiency. Thesolution offers customers unified, real-time analytics and visualization-oftenreferred to as "manufacturing intelligence"-as an out-of-the box solutionfor customers in manufacturing industries.

"Unparalleled industry experience, combined with the broadest combinationof tightly integrated business solutions, is the value proposition SAPoffers its customers," said Essam Enany, president, SAP Arabia. "In anincreasingly competitive oil and gas industry, thought leadership andproven business solutions are critical for success. According to McKinsey& Company, there will be a paradigm shift in the petrochemicals businessfrom the West to the East, and the Middle East will emerge as a globalhub in the future. We want to empower regional companies like Sahara Petrochemicalstake advantage of this opportunity by providing them with end-to-end,cost-effective, business solutions."