ARIA Commodities, a leading player in the field of asphalt and distillates and storage infrastructure development, has announced it will invest a total of AED 154 million ($42 million) in the construction of four plants in the Hamriyah Free Zone (HFZA), including a bitumen plant, a refinery, a tyre cycling plant, and a storage terminal.

ARIA has also announced that it will lease three additional plots of land in the free zone, bringing the total number of plots acquired to five, with a combined area of 540,000 sq.ft.

ARIA’s new expansion plan was revealed during a ceremony held recently to sign a lease agreement with the Hamriyah Free Zone Authority by Saud Salim Al Mazrouei, HFZA Director, and Mirat Bhadlawala, Chief Executive Officer for the Energy Business and Chief Optimization Officer for ARIA Group. The ceremony was attended by a number of senior officials from both sides.

The new development is expected to further boost HFZA’s leading position as a top destination for businesses looking forward to basing their operation within a competitive environment that offers simple business set-up procedures.

ARIA Group’s industrial base, which is located in HFZA was established in February 2021. The four new facilities are designed in such a way that takes into account adhering to sustainability standards as well as the optimal use of natural resources, which supports the company’s commitment towards renewable energy and will certainly contribute towards the UAE’s goal of Net Zero 2050.

Sustainability standards

Lauding ARIA’s expansion plans, Al Mazrouei stressed that the new investments will not only enhance the sustainability standards in Sharjah but will also support the UAE’s efforts being made to enhance its international reputation and adopt circular economy concepts. Moreover, its investments will bolster Sharjah’s strategy, which seeks to develop solutions, services, and products that cement sustainable growth and advance the local economy towards greater prosperity.

“ARIA’s new plants will be eco-friendly. Not only will the four plants improve the optimum use of natural resources, but they will also help reduce industrial waste and extend the life cycle of materials and products by adopting environmentally friendly measures,” Al Mazrouei said.

National industrial strategy

“It is projected that ARIA’s expansion goals would support the national industrial strategy. In addition to enhancing the value of products made in the UAE, they will help meet the growing demands of key sectors on which the national economy of the country is based, such as construction, chemical industries, roads, maritime transport, petroleum products, and logistics services for the aviation sector. We will make every effort to satisfy such demands, diversify, and improve UAE exports to several nations in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa,” he added.

Expanding globally

For his part, Mirat Bhadlawala stressed that ARIA aims to be a one-stop-shop in road and civil construction, manufacturing, and trading of distillates, not just within Hamriyah but expanding our reach globally to cater to the gas oil and bunkering markets too. Our decision to base our operations in HFZA was a step in the right direction. The free zone is strategically located as an oil zone with multi-dimensional infrastructure catering to the UAE holistically, with the north and south within an equidistant reach and the port infrastructure helping us not just to serve the UAE but also spread our wings to the world.

It has one of the best infrastructure and support systems for the oil and gas industry, which elevates the investor’s business manifold times and promotes the business globally. HFZA’s cutting-edge technological advancements have boosted investors’ confidence and promoted an ease of doing business backed up by online support platforms connecting and helping investors with the click of a button.

Safe Environment

Bhadlawala added: “We aim to create a safer environment globally by introducing environmentally friendly, renewable products supporting the circular economy, which will be used in the road paving industry; and the refinery will support green fuel for vehicles and bunkers complying with IMO 2020.

Our plants will cater to projects spanning from diversified terrain roads to high-intensity surfaces such as airport runways.” He stated that the company’s target audience includes road contractors, bunkering industries; cement factories (crushers); paving industries; industrial fuel; chemical and paint industries; and the automobile and transportation sector.

In addition to offering industrial and commercial plots of land, HFZA, the second-largest industrial-free zone in the UAE, provides advanced infrastructure and modern facilities that strengthen external expansion plans for investors, especially in importing and re-exporting, to the world’s markets. It also provides countless competitive advantages, most notably a single-window operation that boosts the efficiency of performance and eases procedures of doing business, along with multiple tax exemptions, repatriation of capital and profits, full foreign ownership of the business, and quick access to regional and global markets.