Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), the Gulf's largest company by market value, posted a worse than expected 95.5 percent fall in fourth-quarter net profit which it blamed on global woes.

Sabic made SR311 million ($82.9 million) in the three months to December 31 down from the Sr6.87 billion it made a year-earlier, the state-controlled firm said in a statement posted on the bourse's Web site.

'The sharp decrease in fourth-quarter earnings is generally due to a decline in demand on petrochemical products and metals because of the economic recession and to the credit crisis,' the firm said.

Analysts forecast of Sabic's fourth quarter earnings ranged from SR3.6 billion to SR6.36 billion, according to a Reuters survey last month.

Sabic's earnings serve as a yardstick for earnings of other petrochemical majors such as Germany's BASF  and Dow Chemical.-Reuters