Bubblegum Crisis
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2012
- Messages
- 2,612
- Reaction score
- 5
- Country
- Location
Welcome back ‘Mosamania’ 
Jaguars Halewood Plant Factory
Jaguar Castle Bromwich Plant Factory
...
Jaguar C-X75 Electric-Turbine Concept
Jaguar Land Rover considers manufacturing in Saudi Arabia
11 December 2012 Last updated at 08:38 GMT
Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is considering building cars in Saudi Arabia, it has said.
If it went ahead, it would be the Indian-owned company's second overseas manufacturing plant.
It agreed to build a plant in Shanghai last month.
At this stage, an agreement with Saudi Arabia is limited to a letter of intent to start a feasibility study.
The company told the BBC that any new plant in Saudi Arabia would not lead to job losses in the UK.
JLR said overseas production would come in addition to the work done in the UK.
It has not yet decided whether Jaguar or Land Rover models would be best suited for such production.
The West Midlands-based luxury carmaker agreed a £1bn deal with Chinese manufacturer Chery Automobile last month.
The two plan to build a plant near Shanghai, which is due to open in 2015, to try to take advantage of the fast-growing market for cars in China, where sales of Jaguar Land Rover's vehicles have risen 80% in the past year.
JLR also has an assembly plant in Pune, India, where pre-manufactured parts are put together.
'Business case'
It is the construction of the world's largest aluminium smelting facility in Saudi Arabia that has attracted JLR's parent company Tata Motors to the kingdom.
Jaguar Land Rover relies on the lightweight metal aluminium for the manufacturing of its vehicles.
The smelter is a joint venture between Alcoa and the Saudi Arabian Mining Company, which combines mining, refining and production of the metal in one facility.
It is expected to produce the lowest-priced aluminium in the world when it starts work.
In an interview with Autocar India earlier this year, the chairman of Tata motors, Ratan Tata said: "This smelter could make the production of aluminium in Saudi Arabia very competitive."
"So taking a really long-term view, if we put an assembly plant there with a large press shop, given our commitment to aluminium in our products, we could have an interesting business case, which we are examining today."
BBC
Jaguars Halewood Plant Factory
Jaguar Castle Bromwich Plant Factory
...
Jaguar Land Rover inks deal, mulls Saudi plant
By Reuters
Tuesday, 11 December 2012 5:11 PM
Saudi Arabia will sign a letter of intent with Tata Group to manufacture 50,000 Land Rover vehicles a year in the kingdom, using locally produced aluminium and steel, the commerce and industry ministry said on Tuesday.
The SR4.5bn ($1.2bn) investment may later be extended to other Jaguar Land Rover brands, said a press release distributed at the signing ceremony in the Saudi capital.
The factory will start up in 2017 in either the Jubail or Yanbu industrial cities. Saudi Arabia is seeking to develop local industry to diversify its economy away from oil exports. India's Tata group owns Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Steel and Tetley Tea in Britain. Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Tata Motors, a unit of Tata Group.
JLR has seen huge demand over the past year from emerging markets such as China, Russia and countries in the Middle East for its luxury SUVs and sleek sedans, offsetting sluggish growth in developed markets.
The company and its Chinese partner Chery Automobile said last month they had laid the foundation stone for a factory near Shanghai.
"I can't make any statement for these kind of investment figures. We have just signed a letter of intent .... it's a letter of intent to investigate the project," JLR Chief Executive Ralf Speth told reporters in the Saudi capital.
"A memorandum of understanding is ... scheduled in the next year and this memorandum of understanding will have more facts and figures."
Saudi Arabia, which does not have an existing automotive industry, is seeking to develop local industry to diversify its economy away from oil exports, leveraging its abundant natural resources and low electricity prices.
JLR said in its statement it had already identified opportunities for aluminium component production in the country, but it did not specify where the investment for the proposed plant would come from.
The company would not lose British jobs to any new Saudi plant, Speth said. "If we proceed, it will complement our existing expansion in the UK and elsewhere," Speth was quoted as saying in the JLR statement.
For Tata Motors, JLR is a key unit which delivers 90 percent of group profit. The group's shares jumped last month after it reported that July-September margins at JLR had improved to 14.8 percent from 14.4 percent a year earlier.
Ratan Tata, outgoing chairman of Tata Group, told a magazine in September that Tata Motors was looking using local aluminium production in Saudi Arabia, where Saudi Arabian Mining Co (Maaden) and Alcoa Inc are building a smelter scheduled to start production next year.
That smelter is on Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast, across the country from Yanbu, but Shalabi said a rail link connecting the two areas would be operational by 2017 to ship rolled aluminium to the Land Rover factory.
Jaguar C-X75 Electric-Turbine Concept
Last edited by a moderator:
