Middle Eastern petrochemical companies suffered from massive downturn in their value during 2008 mainly due to the global financial crisis. The outlook for the next year is also gloomy. On Sunday, the Kuwaiti government canceled its huge polyethylene joint venture with the American giant Dow. Nevertheless, according to Dr. Gil Feiler, CEO of Info Prod Research and author Investing in Russia and Rethinking Business Strategy for the EIU, most Middle East petrochemical public companies enjoyed price hike in their value in December. Industries Qatar registered the highest hike of 32 percent, Saudi SABIC went up 14 percent and ALCO, NIC and Sahara Petroleum gained 11 percent or more.

The worst returns were registered by PetroRabigh and SIIG with negative return of around 5 percent each of the companies. Dr. Gil Feiler noted that the North American petrochemical companies generally registered negative return in December. Nova registered a fall of more than 45 percent, Eastman 11 percent and Westlake downtrend of more than 8 percent. Dow and Methanex registered positive returns of 4.5 percent and almost 1 percent. Against the North American scene, the European petrochemical public companies were on the positive side with nice return in December. Yara went up 20 percent, Akzo Nobel and BASF 6 percent each.