Sipchem Celebrates Second Anniversary Of Merger

Sahara International Petrochemical Company (Sipchem) is marking two years since the merger of Saudi International Petrochemical Company with Sahara Petrochemicals Company was approved in May 2019. Since that time ,Sipchem has gone on to achieve many significant milestones throughout its integration journey, and became now one of the leading petrochemical companies the region.

Sipchem now has a market presence in more than 40 countries for 23 products, together with total assets of SAR 21.8 billion. By the end of 2020, Sipchem had already delivered 78% of the synergy’s added-value targets in half of the targeted time, driven by a strategy that ensures optimal integration on the organizational, human capital, manufacturing processes, and systems fronts. Sipchem has also initiated a comprehensive strategy refresh of its assets, which sets a path for its continuing growth .

“The past two years have witnessed many achievements that ranked Sipchem as a reference case for successful integration in the region,” said Eng. Abdullah Al-Saadoon, CEO of Sipchem. “In 2019, we launched our merger benefits program outlining our three-year goals. Since then, Sipchem set out to achieve these goals. In 2020, we realized SAR 136 million in recurrent EBITDA as a result of integration synergies. We have now entered the final year of our integration commitments, and are fully confident that we will deliver on the expectations of our shareholders.”

Last year, Sipchem demonstrated its remarkable agility by moving rapidly to navigate the evolving circumstances of the global COVID-19 pandemic by securing operational continuity while maintaining employee health and safety. In addition, it executed several important initiatives including the converting to Islamic loans , reviewing its assets portfolio and mothballing underperforming assets with significant operating losses to optimize cost; and enhancing the operational profitability of the company.

These endeavors were reflected in Sipchem’s strong results for the first quarter of 2021, which saw a significant increase in net profit and cash flow. Driven by increases in sales prices for most of its products and in overall sales volume, Sipchem reported a net income of SAR 411.5 million (USD 109.7 million) and earnings per share (EPS) of SAR 0.57 during this period.

Eng. Al-Saadoon concluded: “Looking to our future strategies, we will continue to leverage innovation to deliver operational excellence and growth through ‘Shareek’ in line with our commitment to the goals of Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and aspirations of Sipchem’s investors.”