July 10, 2026
Year of AI 2026 · Updated July 2026
SAUDI COMPUTE
The Kingdom's Compute Buildout, Tracked.
Sovereign AI Infrastructure · Capital Flows · Geopolitical Intelligence

Nsd En · Page 33

nsd_en.pdf

Page 33 · 778 words

07. Sub-Sector Strategiesـ
01
07 
Sub-Sector 
Strategiesـ
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
 Specialty
 Chemical
Formulations
Segment Selection:
The value chain for Specialty Chemical Formulations considers process 
and product life cycle, from R&D to distribution and sales. The focus of 
R&D and technology is on formulation and application knowledge, in-
cluding technical assistance to end users. Some intellectual protection 
is filed to cover new applications of certain formulations or new routes 
and configuration of production processes, but to a large extent technol-
ogy and innovation arecentered in the abovementioned formulation and 
technical collaboration with end users. Raw materials are Basic, Inter-
mediate, conversion and specialty Petrochemical molecules that in some 
cases are common to multiple applications. The subsector itself is seg-
mented based on the specific application, with a generally accepted clas-
sification that has been adopted and adapted to define 30 distinctive seg-
ments in NIS. Distribution is more complex than in Basic, Intermediate, 
conversion and specialty Petrochemicals, given the average volumes and 
the portfolio, formulations, and grades complexity. The logistics are also 
different, smaller in volumes and requiring specific services and pack-
aging types. Sales and quality control are closely linked to the technical 
functions, as part of the discussed relevance of the tailored manufactur-
ing and technical support to customers.
The Specialty Chemical Formulations assessment is inspired by NIS strategic objectives 
aiming at expanding global and regional reach by leveraging existing capabilities. To be-
come a regional integrated export hub for Specialty Chemical Formulations, the ability 
to integrate with raw materials locally was studied, along with the availability of local 
technology and licenses (with or without joint venture requirements) and the current 
base of manufacturers and global players for each segment. To contribute to expanding 
global leadership, global/regional growth in each application was analyzed, along with 
resilience of global trends.
A total of 30 Specialty Chemical Formulations were assessed with 20 applications 
filtered for their potential to assist KSA’s growth.
Specialty Chemical groups analyzed and priortaized*
Legend of used terms
* Oil field chemicals, water management chemicals, industrial & inst. cleaners, catalysts and con-
struction chemicals have been considered in the National Petrochemical Strategy. These molecules 
will be localized through the petrochemicals sector split governance
 Specialities prioratized
Other chemicals
Potectial for global reach
Important for national resilience
 Adhesives
and sealants
 Oil field
chemicals
Mining chem-
icals
 Lubricating
oil additives
Flame retard-
ant
Textile chem-
icals
 Corrosion
inhibitors
Rubber-pro-
cessing chem-
icals
Pharmaceuti-
 cals
Catalysts
 Nutraceutical
ingredients
Biocides
 Paints and
Coatings
Surfactants
 Synthetic
lubricants
Food ingredi-
ents
Specialty poly-
 mers (specialty
)films
 Electronic
chemicals
 Industrial and
inst. Cleaners
 Specialty
coatings
 Flavors &
Fragrances
Plastic addi-
tives
Printing inks
Paper chemi-
cals specialty
Water manage-
 ment chemicals
& polymers
 Construction
chemicals
 Water soluble
polymers
Antioxidants
 Cosmetics
chemicals
Agrochem-
icals
07. Sub-Sector Strategiesـ
07 
Sub-Sector 
Strategiesـ
ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
→ nsd_en.pdf page 33