Saudi Aramco CEO leads ICIS ‘Power Players’ ranking

The CEO of Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser, has topped a global ranking of the leading CEOs and senior executives making the greatest positive impact on their companies and the industry.

Compiled by senior staff at market intelligence firm for the petrochemicals industry, ICIS, the level of activity currently being undertaken by Saudi Aramco was one of the reasons its CEO came top of the ‘Top 40 Power Players’ list.

“The level of petrochemical project activity for Saudi Aramco is unprecedented for any company. This will reshape the global landscape for many years to come,” said Joseph Chang, Global Editor of ICIS Chemical Business.

“In what could be a global technology game changer, Aramco is also working on multiple technology tracks for crude oil-to-chemicals that would offer greater competition to US shale gas-based crackers,” he added.

Saudi Aramco is undertaking two massive projects in Saudi Arabia - a crude oil-to-chemicals (CTC) project in Yanbu with SABIC and the 1.5m tonne/year cracker joint venture project, Amiral, with France-based Total in Jubail.

Outside the kingdom, Aramco is nearing completion of the PRefChem joint venture refinery/cracker project with PETRONAS in Malaysia. In China, Aramco is planning a joint venture refinery and cracker with NORINCO and Panjin Sincen in Liaoning.

Aramco is also planning a massive refinery and petrochemicals complex in Raigad, India with a consortium of Indian oil companies as well as Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC).

On the M&A front, Aramco’s planned $69bn (approx. £53bn GBP) acquisition of a 70 per cent stake in SABIC is expected to close in the first half of 2020, which would bring even more petrochemical projects under the Aramco umbrella.

In the ICIS Top 40 Power Players 2019 ranking, Dow CEO, Jim Fitterling, came in second, followed by LyondellBasell CEO, Bob Patel.

The full rankings can be downloaded here:  https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/icistop40-2019/.