RIYADH: NAFT Services will see its number of gas stations in Saudi Arabia more than double thanks to the SR1.1 billion ($293.1 million) deal with Saudi Automotive Services Co announced earlier this week.

The deal will see the automotive services firm, also known as SASCO, take an 80 percent stake in the gas station firm. 

The money will be used to expand NAFT’s current network of 233 gas stations spread through the Kingdom to 500, SASCO’s Vice Chairman Sultan Al Hudaithi said in an interview with CNBC Arabia.

“We want to take advantage of this network to reach customers faster, whether individuals, companies or the government sector and to achieve synergy between benefiting from both SASCO and NAFT teams’ expertises,” Al Hudaithi said.

“This is an important step to expand and shorten the time for natural growth. This acquisition enables us to rapidly spread in different regions in the Kingdom, and achieve more integration between the two companies,” he added.

Negotiations are underway with a group of local banks to finance the acquisition, and the percentage of self-financing is not determined yet, according to Al Hudaithi.

Once completed, the deal will see SASCO have a 5 percent share of the market.

The vice chairman said there will be progress in terms of services provided to the company’s customers in the Kingdom.

On SASCO future performance, Al Hudaithi expected significant improvement in 2022, with Saudi recovery from the pandemic.

“With the return of schools, we expect the recovery to speed up in gas stations in general, as well as travel between cities,” he said.