Producer

SABIC

HQ SA · Riyadhwebsite ↗

Saudi Arabian petrochemical giant (~10.9M tons/yr polyethylene capacity). Owned 70% by Saudi Aramco since 2020. Major HDPE, LLDPE producer via world-scale plants in Saudi Arabia, Europe, and China JVs.

3

Inputs supplied

2

Goods downstream

2

Facilities

0

Stories

Where it shows up

Goods downstream

Essential goods that depend on something SABIC makes — pick one to see the full supply chain.

What else they do

Business segments

The company's full revenue map — where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.

  • Petrochemicals

    55%
  • Agri-Nutrients (SAFCO)

    15%
  • Metals (Hadeed)

    10%
  • Specialties & Performance

    15%
  • Other Chemicals

    5%

Intelligence

What's known

Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains — chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.

  • Did you know2020

    SABIC, the world's 2nd-largest PE producer, is 70% owned by Saudi Aramco — the company that pumps more oil than any nation except Russia and the US. When you buy HDPE irrigation pipe made with SABIC resin, you are indirectly purchasing petrochemical capacity underwritten by sovereign Saudi oil wealth. SABIC's cost of ethane feedstock is set by the Saudi government, not market price.

    SABIC
  • Origin2023

    SABIC was founded in 1976 by the Saudi Arabian government as a deliberate industrial policy to capture value-added downstream processing from the kingdom's natural gas feedstocks, rather than simply exporting raw hydrocarbons. The government recognized that ethane from Saudi oil fields was being flared or reinjected due to lack of domestic processing capacity -- wasted value. SABIC was created to build world-scale petrochemical plants in Jubail Industrial City that would convert this cheap ethane into plastics and chemicals worth multiples more than the gas itself. The strategy succeeded: SABIC became one of the world's largest petrochemical companies by the 1990s-2000s, using subsidized Saudi feedstock costs to compete against Western chemical companies on price globally. Saudi Aramco acquired a 70% controlling stake in SABIC in 2020 for $69.1B, completing the vertical integration of Saudi energy production through chemicals and into consumer plastics.

    SABIC