[8] SABIC was founded in 1976 by royal decree to convert oil by-products into useful chemicals, polymers, and fertilizers.

[9] SABIC's founding transformed the small fishing villages of Jubail on the Persian Gulf and Yanbu on the Red Sea into modern industrial cities.

[13][14] In July 2002, SABIC commenced operations in Europe after the $2 billion acquisition of the petrochemicals business of Dutch group DSM.

Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings claimed SABIC to be the world's largest producer of polymers and the Persian Gulf region's largest steel producer for 2005; they assigned SABIC an "A" corporate credit rating.

Headquartered in Sittard, Netherlands, SABIC Europe has a European wide network of sales offices and logistic hubs, as well as three petrochemical production sites in Europe: Geleen (Netherlands), Teesside (United Kingdom), and Gelsenkirchen (Germany).

[17] In July 2009, SABIC received approval from the Chinese government to build a US$3 billion petrochemical complex in China, in order to gain a foothold in the world's fastest-growing chemicals market.

[22] In January 2018, SABIC announced that it had acquired a 24.99% stake in Clariant, the Swiss specialty chemical manufacturer.

The stake was acquired from activist investor White Tale, and at Clariant's prevailing market-capitalisation would have been valued in the region of $2.4bn.

SABIC CEO Yousef Al-Benyan had previously stated, in November 2017, that the company was looking to spend $3bn-$10bn on acquisitions over the next 10 years.

On March 27, 2019, SABIC announced that state-owned energy company Saudi Aramco signed a share purchase agreement to acquire a 70% majority stake in SABIC from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia in a private transaction worth $69.1 billion.