According to Standard & Poor’s, SABIC’s upgrade was driven by three key factors:
• The rating agency’s reassessment of SABIC’s strategic importance to the Kingdom in enhancing the value of the country’s hydrocarbon reserves
• SABIC’s strong operational performance based on its competitive advantage deriving from access to natural gas, favourable geographic location and strong infrastructure at the large industrial sites in Al-Jubail and Yanbu
• The group’s excellent financial profile as demonstrated by an EBITDA margin of 41.5% for the first six months of 2006, significantly above S&P’s rated industry peers and a net cash surplus of over SAR 4 billion.
The ratings on SABIC further reflect the group’s leading market positions in basic and commodity chemicals, fertilizers and steel. SABIC is globally the largest exporter of granular urea, the largest producer of MEG and second largest producer of Methanol and MTBE. SABIC is also the world’s third largest producer of Ethylene and Polyethylene. SABIC remains on track to increase its production capacity to over 60 million metric tons (mt) by 2008.
The A+ rating confirms SABIC’s leading position amongst the world’s top petrochemical companies.
SABIC’s net income rose to a record SAR 19.2 billion in 2005 on revenues of SAR 78.3 billion making SABIC the most profitable petrochemical company in the world.
SABIC is the largest public company in the Middle East, ranked by market capitalization (approximately US$ 90 billion), and one of the world’s 10 largest petrochemicals manufacturers.
