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Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) on Thursday reported a 33 percent rise in Q1 2022 net profit after zakat and tax to 6.47 billion ($1.73 billion) compared with the net income of 4.86 billion but warned of slowing growth for the year.
The effort easily beat most analyst expectations. Financial data provider Refinitiv had calculated a mean analysts’ estimate of 5.12 billion riyals.
The jump in profit was due mainly to higher average selling prices and higher sales volume and lower operating costs, the petrochemicals giant said in a filing on the Saudi bourse Tadawul.
Earnings per share came in at 2.67 riyals versus 1.62 riyals in the same quarter of 2021.
Revenue rose to 52.64 billion riyals, 40 percent higher versus the year-ago period.
EBITDA rose 23 percent to 12.79 billion riyals while the EBITDA margin was 24 percent.
"Outlook Global growth is projected to slow from an average of 5.8% in 2021 to a range of 3.2% - 3.6% in 2022 despite economic uncertainty for the remainder of 2022,” SABIC said in its filing.
For the remainder of 2022, SABIC expects its EBITDA to remain flat y-o-y mainly due to higher sales volumes offset by higher feedstock prices.
SABIC’s value capture associated with Saudi Aramco since the oil producer acquired 70 percent of SABIC shares until end-March is 2.09 billion riyals, including year to date 334 million riyals.
(Reporting by Brinda Darasha; editing by Seban Scaria)
