SABIC Agri-Nutrients Brand Guidelines: Safco, the 1965 Nitrogen Maker of Jubail

Older than the group whose name it carries.

SABIC Agri-Nutrients began as the Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Company, or Safco. The company says it was established by royal decree in 1965 as a joint venture between the government and the citizens of Saudi Arabia, and calls itself the first petrochemical company in the kingdom; the trade journal MEED repeated that description in October 2026. English Wikipedia gives the founding date as 11 September 1965 and the headquarters as Jubail, in the Eastern Province.

Safco is older than the group whose name it now carries. Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, SABIC, was founded by royal decree in 1976 to turn oil by-products into chemicals, polymers and fertilisers, English Wikipedia says. Today the company says SABIC holds 50.1 percent of its shares and the remaining 49.9 percent is held by the private sector and the public; Arab News described it in October 2022 as “half-owned” by SABIC, and MEED calls it an affiliate of the chemicals group. SABIC itself has been 70 percent owned by Saudi Aramco since a purchase from the Public Investment Fund that was agreed in March 2019 and completed in June 2020, English Wikipedia says, citing the Financial Times.

The old name still surfaces. The company’s own news archive lists its 2017 and 2018 results under “Saudi Arabia Fertilizers Co. (SAFCO),” and both MEED and Zawya introduced the company in 2026 as “formerly” Safco. Its shares trade on the Saudi Exchange, Tadawul, where it files its announcements.

Nitrogen first, then phosphate and NPK grades.

The range is built on nitrogen. The company’s website sorts its products into three groups: ammonia, urea and other products. It describes urea as a white, water-soluble solid with a nitrogen content of 46 percent, made as granules, prills or pastilles, and offers a technical-grade urea for industrial customers. Ammonia, it says, is the main raw material for urea and for several other fertilisers, and is also sold for industrial uses such as acrylonitrile, nitric acid and melamine.

The other products include two phosphate fertilisers, diammonium phosphate and monoammonium phosphate, and NPK grades named by their nutrient ratios: 11-29-19+6S, which the company says is used mainly on tuber crops such as potatoes and onions, and 18-18-5+9S, for vegetables and green landscapes. One grade is named for a crop: a Date Palm grade that, the company says, SABIC developed for date palms in the Middle East. The list also carries two industrial chemicals, 2-ethyl hexanol and dioctyl phthalate.

Production is centred on Jubail Industrial City. In September 2026 the board approved the final investment decision on a seventh project there, called San VII, and the main engineering, procurement and construction contract went to Samsung E&A of South Korea, MEED reported on 9 October 2026, citing the company’s filing to the Saudi Exchange. The complex is designed for about 1.2 million tonnes a year of ammonia and 2.6 million tonnes a year of urea, with a post-combustion carbon capture unit, and MEED said it would raise the company’s urea capacity from about 4.8 million to 7.4 million tonnes a year. San VII replaced an earlier plan, known as San VI, for a low-carbon ammonia plant. Construction was due to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026, with commercial production expected in the fourth quarter of 2030.

How fertiliser makers present themselves.

Fertiliser makers sell to two very different audiences at once: farmers and dealers on one side, and industrial buyers, investors and governments on the other. Their public material tends to reflect that split. Green fields, ripening crops and harvest scenes sit beside photographs of mines, process plants, storage domes and port terminals, so that the farm and the factory appear under the same name.

Much of what these companies publish is practical. Crop-nutrition guides, product-grade explainers and nutrient ratios printed as plain numbers, such as an NPK grade written out in full, do a good deal of the identity work. Many makers add agronomy tools, soil-testing services, call centres or field demonstrations for growers, and present them as part of the brand rather than as an extra.

The investor side has its own documents. Annual reports, quarterly statements, sustainability and emissions reports and filings to stock exchanges give these companies a steady, formal voice, often with maps of plants and shipping routes. Capacity figures, new plant projects and joint ventures appear there first, usually dated and attributed, and they are the most reliable record of how a maker has grown.

Distribution is the last layer. Fertiliser reaches farms through dealer networks, cooperatives, regional offices and state channels, and the bag, the dealer sign and the product name are often what a grower actually sees. The guides that follow look at each company through what can be checked: who founded it, who owns it, where it makes its products, how it presents itself and, where it matters, how its name and ownership have changed over the decades.

A group name over a 1965 company.

The name places the company inside a larger family. SABIC Agri-Nutrients uses the SABIC name and the SABIC purpose line, “Chemistry that Matters,” which appears on its vision page, and its website carries a SABIC copyright notice. Its stated mission is to contribute to global food security by providing what it calls sustainable agri-nutrient solutions, and it sets out its values in four verbs: inspire, engage, create and deliver. Its strategy page puts the business more plainly: to produce, process, manufacture and market all kinds of fertilisers for local and international markets, with ammonia and urea named first.

Two agreements of recent years point to where it is looking. In January 2023 the company and the Icelandic start-up Atmonia announced an exclusivity agreement for ammonia production using Atmonia’s technology in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, according to a PR Newswire release. In August 2026 it signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Maaden Integrated Fertilizer Company, the holding entity for the phosphate business of the miner Maaden, to explore collaboration across the agri-nutrients value chain; Zawya reported that the memorandum runs for three years and is tied to the company’s 2040 strategy.

That 2040 strategy, as the company described it in its San VII filing quoted by MEED, aims to strengthen the kingdom’s place in the export market for agricultural nutrients and to contribute to global food security.

For a design guide, SABIC Agri-Nutrients shows how a company founded in 1965 can take on its parent group’s name while keeping its own nitrogen business and history. Compare Fertiglobe, the ADNOC-led nitrogen venture, and Qafco, the Qatar Fertiliser Company. For this guide we use a gulf blue, a dune sand and a prill white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep SABIC Agri-Nutrients’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.