SABIC donates $1.5 million to support COVID-19 response
SABIC, a diversified chemical company headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has earmarked about $1.5 million in donations to assist those most impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Americas region. Houston is home to SABIC’s Americas region headquarters.
The donations consist of approximately $1 million to food banks and communitybased agencies such as United Way organizations in communities in which SABIC operates. Additionally, the company is donating approximately $500,000 of products made at its facilities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.
The products include personal protection equipment made from SABIC plastics for health care workers and first responders, as well as materials used in medical equipment such as ventilators, patient monitoring devices, respiratory therapy machines and diagnostic equipment.
“We are honored that our materials are used in devices that help make critical medical equipment to treat patients and at the same time offer materials that are used in the protection of those on the front line including healthcare professionals while they perform their duties,” Greg Adams, the company’s vice president for the region, said in a statement.
SABIC has 60 manufacturing and compounding plants worldwide, including U.S. facilities in Mississippi, Alabama, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York and Michigan. In Texas, the company is a partner with Exxon Mobil in the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures project in San Patricio County.
In the Houston area, SABIC has more than 500 employees at its headquarters in Westchase and at SABIC Technology Center in Sugar Land. It does not have a manufacturing plant in Houston.
Locally, SABIC is donating $100,000 to the Houston Food Bank and $150,000 the Greater Houston COVID-19 Recovery Fund, which is a joint effort by the United Way of Greater Houston and the Greater Houston Community Foundation.
Also, SABIC employees are raising funds that will go to charitable organizations of their choice, and the company is matching their contributions dollar-for-dollar. Examples of the donations include:
• 70,000 face shields made from its Lexan film that will be distributed to health care workers and first responders throughout the Americas region. The company is donating face shields to local hospitals.
• Fabrication and donation of medical face shields by SABIC’s Polymer Processing Development Center in Pittsfield, Mass.
• Collaboration between SABIC’s Cobourg, Canada, facility and a local hospital and a nonprofit to create face shields
• SABIC’s Campinas, Brazil, plant collaborated with a university and others to create ventilators for local hospitals
In addition to the Americas, SABIC operates in Europe, the Middle East and Asian Pacific. The company’s products include chemicals, commodity and highperformance plastics, agri-nutrients and metals. SABIC employs nearly 5,000 people across its Americas region, where it has operated since 1987.