Southern Cement, Saudi Arabia’s largest listed cement firm reported net profits of SR615 million ($164m) today, up 12.7 per cent from the previous year Southern cement’s net profit in 2004 reached SR545.7 million, the company said in a statement. Southern Cement also said it was mulling a capital increase, but gave no further details. It said a new line under construction would start production in the first quarter of 2007, with a daily capacity of 5000t. The firm’s total output last year reached 4.18Mt.