The world’s biggest petrochemicals firm by market value, a yardstick for Dow Chemical and Germany’s BASF, gave the upbeat outlook after broadly meeting analysts forecasts with a 27 percent increase of net profit.

“2010 is the beginning of the growth and we will see growth continuing in 2011-2012,” Chief Executive Mohamed Al-Mady told reporters at the company’s headquarters, declining to give a growth figure for profit or sales.

“We expect petrochemicals prices to go up and return to their normal levels before the crisis,” Al-Mady said.

SABIC said production rose in 2010 by 12 percent to 65 million tons of petrochemicals last year and the output will further increase as new units will go online.

Operations at a new steel plant, with a capacity close to 1 million tons per year will begin by the end of the year.

SABIC’s affiliate Saudi Kayan Petrochemicals would start commercial production in the second half of the year, Al-Mady said, adding that output at its Saudi-based affiliates Yansab and Sharq and its Tianjin joint-venture with Sinopec would also rise.

He also told Reuters that an expansion of its affiliate Arabian Industrial Fibers Co. (Ibn Rushd) would be completed within two and a half years.

SABIC has not yet decided whether to build synthetic rubber plants at Yanpet and Kemya, two Saudi-based joint ventures with and US ExxonMobil Chemical.