Chemical Week’s Billion-Dollar Club: Rise of the SOEs

The chemical industry saw largely flat revenues and declining profits during a difficult 2025. While BASF SE retained its top position in S&P Global Energy's exclusive Chemical Week Billion-Dollar Club, an annual ranking of the chemical industry's top companies by revenue, three of the top five companies were Chinese state-owned enterprises.

For the seventh consecutive year, BASF topped CW's Billion-Dollar Club ranking of the chemical industry's largest companies by annual revenue. BASF has held the top spot on the list since 2015, with the exception of 2017 and 2018, when the short-lived merger of Dow Inc. and DuPont Inc. superseded it before the merged entity was split into three.

However, BASF's position appears tenuous. The German giant reported about $67.45 billion in sales in 2025, only about $640 million more than China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec), which reported $66.80 billion. Sinopec did top the Billion-Dollar Club ranking once previously, in 2014.

This is a substantial shift from last year, when BASF reported over $12 billion more in revenue than Sinopec — about $70.60 billion versus $58.34 billion.

A look beyond the top spot reflects China's increasing preeminence in chemical value chains. Four of the top 10 companies in the ranking are headquartered in mainland China, three of which are in the top five. A fifth company in the top 10, Formosa Plastics, is headquartered in Taiwan.

In the Americas, Dow and ExxonMobil Corp. continue to hold down spots in the Billion-Dollar Club ranking's top 10. In the EMEA region, beyond BASF, Linde PLC and SABIC hold the ninth and tenth spots, respectively,

Company sales figures also indicate the importance of the Asia-Pacific region. The average 2025 revenue of the 41 Billion-Dollar Club companies based in APAC was about $13.94 billion, the largest figure among the three regions tracked by CW. The average revenue of companies based in EMEA and companies based in the Americas was about $12.46 billion and about $11.65 billion, respectively.

Several companies with substantial chemical operations do not report chemical revenue. These include Koch Inc., TotalEnergies SE and Reliance Industries Ltd. There may be some changes in data access from year to year.

Top states

This year's Billion-Dollar Club shows the importance not just of Chinese industry in general, but of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in particular. Three of the top five companies in the ranking — Sinopec, Sinochem Holdings and PetroChina Company Ltd. — are Chinese SOEs. They are ranked second, third and fourth on the list, respectively.

All three companies are majority-owned, sometimes via intermediaries, by China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC; Beijing). SASAC "is a government body that is responsible for managing SOEs, including appointing top executives and approving any mergers or sales of stock or assets, as well as drafting laws related to SOEs," according to S&P Capital IQ.

Sinopec, Sinochem and PetroChina's chemical operations have combined revenues of about $167.31 billion, according to CW estimates — well over twice the size of BASF.

Ownership structures for these SOEs can be complex. For example, Sinochem Holdings includes SinoChem Corp., China National Chemical Corp. Ltd. (ChemChina) and other entities, many of which are not engaged in chemical production. Sinochem Holdings was formed in 2021 by the merger of Sinochem Group and China National Chemical Corp. (ChemChina).

ChemChina is an example of this structural complexity. The company encompasses agchems major Syngenta Group, which it acquired in 2017, silicones and engineering plastics producer China National Bluestar Co. Ltd., and petchems and rubber assets. ChemChina does not have publicly listed equities, but it does issue bonds on global markets.

Meanwhile, China's 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP) may provide a glance at the strategic imperatives shaping the country's chemicals sector. According to a report from China's official news agency, the 15th FYP aims to "promote industrial restructuring in sectors such as steel, petrochemicals and shipbuilding, strengthening and optimizing our bases for ... first-class petrochemicals."

It is worth noting that Sinopec, Sinochem Holdings and PetroChina are not the only SOEs in CW's Billion-Dollar Club. SABIC, the 10th-largest global chemicals producer by revenue, is majority-owned by Saudi Aramco, which is majority-owned by Saudi Arabia. Morocco's OCP, Malaysia's Petronas Chemicals and Qatar's Industries Qatar are also fully or mostly owned by state-backed entities.

Governments are significant minority shareholders in some other chemical producers. These include Norway's Yara International ASA, whose two largest shareholders are the Norwegian government and its pension fund, and Italy's Eni SpA, whose largest shareholder is a development bank controlled by the Italian finance ministry, according to S&P Capital IQ. Eni is primarily involved in energy production, but it also operates a chemical business called Versalis SpA.

SOE-run chemical enterprises are generally sizeable. Average 2025 sales for the eight SOEs in CW's Billion-Dollar Club were about $27.69 billion. In 2025, the average revenue of all 109 companies in the ranking was about $12.77 billion.

Related podcast: How are SOEs shaping industry's present and future?

Chemical Week by S&P Global Energy's Billion-Dollar Club is an annual ranking of the chemical industry's top companies by revenue. For the full list and accompanying article and graphics, click here.