There are eight petrochemicals producers represented in the MEED 100, with some long-established firms maintaining their position and three new entrants from Iran’s chemicals sector.

Saudi producers dominate the list, with five companies making the top 100. The kingdom’s petrochemicals industry is the largest in the region and is worth $354bn, a third of the value of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). As in previous years, Sabic is not only the region’s biggest petrochemicals producer, but also the largest listed company in the Middle East and North Africa, with a market capitalisation of more than $91bn. This is $17.6bn up on last year and two-and-a-half times the value of next-placed QNB.

Profits at Sabic rose 1.8 per cent in 2013 to $6.73bn, with sales revenues roughly flat at $50.4bn. The petrochemicals giant has several ambitious schemes mooted for 2014, including a world-scale petrochemicals plant planned for construction in the US along with an oil-to-petrochemicals plant at Yanbu on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, which should further lift its performance.

Saudi Arabian Fertiliser Company (SAFCO) dropped five places in 2014 and now sits in 16th position, with market capitalisation of $14.8bn. Safco enjoys the highest profit margin of any fertiliser producer in the world, but income in 2013 was affected by lower global prices for urea triggered by increased output from Chinese producers. This oversupply contributed to an 18 per cent fall in profit last year to $843m from $1bn in 2012.

The three other Saudi producers climbed higher in this year’s table. Yanbu National Petrochemicals Company (Yansab) moved up one place to 25 in 2014 on the back of an 8.1 per cent rise in income in 2013. The company reported a profit of $705m last year, compared with $652m in 2012, and now has a market capitalisation of $10.8bn.

Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Company, which is majority owned by Sabic, has finally started to reverse the losses it has been accruing in the process of building its $10bn complex in Jubail and as a result climbed five places to 43 on the list, with a market capitalisation of $6.4bn. The company cut its annual loss by 55 per cent in 2013 to $92.2m, from $205.8m in 2012.

The start-up of additional production units meant that losses at Tadawul-listed National Petrochemical Company (Petrochem) also decreased by 86 per cent in 2013 to $17.6m, from $123.7m in 2012. This helped the producer to move up 10 places to 80, with a market capitalisation of $3.6bn.

Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Holding is the highest new entrant at 17, with a market capitalisation of $13.5bn. A total of 5 per cent of shares in the state-controlled petrochemicals giant were offered on the Tehran Stock Exchange in April 2013 at a price of IR7,500 ($0.30) a share. The company produced 18.2 million tonnes of products in the year up to March 2014, which accounts for 40 per cent of the Islamic Republic’s total chemicals output.