quarter results were affected by several factors. The most important was the continuous slowdown in global economic growth, especially in Europe, China and North America, which negatively impacted the prices of petrochemical products. Also, this period witnessed some of the scheduled plant maintenance activities for some of our plants, especially in fertilizers, metals and some petrochemical plants. As a result of the global economic slowdown customers seek to reduce the size of their inventory of petrochemical products in anticipation of the decline of prices for these products worldwide. This adds additional pressure on the prices of these products. --MORE
