The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) was established by a royal decree in 1976 to produce chemicals, polymers and fertilizers. In 2005, SABIC was the Middle East's largest (in terms of market capitalization) and most profitable publicly listed non-oil company, the world's 11th largest petrochemical company, ranked 331 on the Fortune Global 500 for 2005, the second largest producer of ethylene glycol and methanol in the world, the third largest producer of polyethylene and overall the fourth largest producer of polypropylene and polyolefin. Standard and Poor's and Fitch Ratings claimed SABIC to be the world's largest producer of polymers and the Gulf region's largest steel producer for 2005 and assigned SABIC 'A' corporate credit rating. That same year, Bloomberg ranked SABIC as the 13th largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization (at the beginning of 2005 it exceeded SAR375 billion, the equivalent of USD100 billion) and the second largest by market value outside the US and UK. In 2004, the value of SABIC shares, listed on the Saudi Stock Market, increased 170% while its net profits increased by 112% from 2003 to 2004.

Headquartered in Riyadh, SABIC has six Strategic Business Units (SBUs): Basic Chemicals; Intermediates; Polyolefins; PVC and Polyester; Fertilizers and Metals. The SBU's are scattered around three industrial sites: Al-Jubail on the Arabian Gulf coast, Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, and the eastern province city of Dammam. SABIC Europe has two petrochemical production sites in Geleen (The Netherlands) and Gelsenkirchen (Germany) for the production, marketing and sale of polypropylene, polyethylene and hydrocarbons. SABIC relies on its own Research and Technology (R and T) department with its main center in Riyadh and supporting operations in Al-Jubail; Houston (USA); Geleen (the Netherlands); and Vadodara (India).

To overcome ethylene and propylene shortfall, SABIC plans to expand its cracker capacity (NICER project) and construct two new polyethylene plants at Sharq and Yanbu that will increase the total production capacity of ethylene glycol (EG) to 3.9 million metric tons per year in 2006, hence making SABIC the world's largest producer of ethylene glycol, and meeting 22% of global demand, up from 16% in 2005. SABIC's share of global ethylene production is projected to reach 7.2% in 2009, up from 5.6% in 2004; whereas its share of global polyolefins production is expected to increase from 6.1% in 2004 to 7% in 2009.

Expansion operations and investments are projected to amount to USD20 billion in 2007 and USD70 billion until 2020 and will increase overall annual production from 43 million metric tons in 2004 to more than 60 million metric tons by 2008.

SABIC established in June 2006 "SABIC Sukuk Company" to issue Islamic bonds (Sukuk) that are estimated to range between SAR1 billion (USD266.67 million) and SAR3 billion (USD800 million).

In 2005, nearly half of SABIC's total global production was dedicated to meeting the Asian region's demand. SABIC Europe (Netherlands) includes all the company's activities in the continent and employed 2,300 people in 2005. In 2004, SABIC sales in Europe amounted to 6 million tons of polymers, base chemicals and intermediates. SABIC is developing several major investment plans for its Geleen and Gelsenkirchen sites, including a third steam cracker in Geleen and three polymer plants.

In 2006, SABIC aquired Huntsman Petrochemicals (UK) and renamed it to SABIC UK Petrochemicals.