Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (), known as SABIC (), is a Saudi chemical manufacturing company. 70% of SABIC's shares are owned by Saudi Aramco. It is active in petrochemicals, chemicals, industrial polymers, fertilizers, and metals. It is the second largest public company in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia as listed in Tadawul. In 2017, SABIC was ranked fourth in the world among chemical companies by Fortune Global 500. By the end of 2018 SABIC was the world's 281st-largest corporation. In 2014, the company had sales revenues of $50.4 billion, profits of $6.7 billion and assets standing at $90.4 billion. It also has been recognized as the world's second most valuable brand in the chemicals industry by Brand Finance in 2021. History SABIC was founded in 1976 by royal decree to convert oil by-products into useful chemicals, polymers, and fertilizers. The first chairman of the company was Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al Gosaibi, the Minister of Industry and Electricity, and the first CEO was Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al Zamil. SABIC's founding transformed the small fishing villages of Jubail on the Persian Gulf and Yanbu on the Red Sea into modern industrial cities. Production in 1985 was 6.5 million tonnes; five years later production rose to 13 million tonnes and by 2003 production had risen to 42 million tonnes and by 2012 to over 60 million tonnes. SABIC employs more than 40,000 people globally and has 60 manufacturing and compounding plants in over 40 countries. SABIC's manufacturing network in Saudi Arabia consists of 18 affiliates. Most of these are based in the Al-Jubail Industrial City on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Two are located in Yanbu Industrial City on the Red Sea and one is in the eastern city of Dammam. SABIC is also partners in three regional ventures based in Bahrain. SABIC is a market leader in key products such as ethylene, ethylene glycol, methanol, MTBE and polyethylene. SABIC's wholly owned subsidiary, the Saudi Iron and Steel Company (Hadeed), based in Al Jubail, is one of the world's biggest fully integrated producers. Operations SABIC underwent a business restructuring in October 2015, that saw the absorption of the commodity chemicals produced under the Innovative Plastics SBU into the Chemicals and Polymers SBUs. Along with this, the Specialties SBU was created to house the remainder of the Innovative Plastics products that did not fall under the commodity umbrella and the Innovative