GM's Delphi Announces Construction of a Battery Plant in Saudi Arabia

07/08/96

GM's Delphi Division announced that Middle East Battery Company, its joint venture with Saudi industrialists and businessmen, has begun constructing a battery plant in Dammam. MEBC will manufacture a million Delco Freedom maintenance free batteries every year in the plant. Production is scheduled to start in late 1997.

Half of the batteries made by the plant in Saudi Arabia will replace 500,000 batteries currently made by American and Korean workers for GM. GM owns a 49 percent share in the joint venture, and Delphi's Energy and Engine Management Systems division has management responsibility for the plant.

Delphi currently produces 28 million sealed lead-calcium chemistry batteries a year in battery plants located in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France, Korea, and the United States. A new plant in Shanghai, China will also begin producing batteries in late 1997.

The announcement of the new plant in Saudi Arabia comes only a couple of months after Delphi announced plans to shut down at least 5 component plants in the United States.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel