Actually, ARAMCO has so far failed to successfully offer its IPO and appears to be on the brink of abandoning their plan to do an IPO at all. The original plan for the IPO was announced back in January 2016----two and half years ago. The IPO has been postponed a couple of times now, and currently there isn't even a scheduled date for the IPO---the failure to do the IPO in a timely fashion as they planned marks a rare business failure by ARAMCO. And a recent news account in the WSJ said high level people in ARAMCO are now leaning towards not doing the sale at all now---a very large change of plans if the WSJ is right (see the link and my cogent discussion of this news above).
the last time you posted this you claimed ARAMCO was canceling the IPO and also made some other claims that were not in the article you referenced...that hardly qualifies as "cogent", illiterate maybe but cogent..no. Nothing has changed. They are waiting on the right time and venue which makes perfect sense given oil prices were in the $40 range when they first announced the IPO and they are now hovering above $70. Not a business failure at all, a business failure would have been pulling the trigger on the IPO back when all the audits were done a year ago and missing out on a ~40% uplift on valuation due to rising prices. And who are these "insiders", no doubt one of the senior folks they sacked a couple of years ago who are forever being touted as "insiders" and have continually made incorrect comments about Saudi production capacity. In the end, ARAMCO will do what makes the most money for them, if that is bringing in someone else to share the CAPEX exposure and allow them to invest in other areas or whether that means postponing the IPO and making hay while the sun shines oil price wise.
The mostly likely reason for the postponement and likely cancellation of the planned ARAMCO IPO is that ARAMCO isn't worth what the Saudis think it is worth. Based on their public statements the Saudi Royal Family had been wildly overestimating the value of ARAMCO and what it would bring in the planned IPO. The actual value of the planned IPO is likely only about 20% of the Saudis royal had been claiming, making it much less attractive for them and hence less likely they'll go forward with it all.
well first off there is no indication whatsoever of a "likely cancellation", that is complete BS. The reserve audits done by two different companies (and the largest at this worldwide) indicated their reserve assessments were in-line with what the Saudis had been reporting to the public. The valuation will be dependent mainly on Proven and Probable reserves (audited), financial analysis that basically comes down to net back on a barrel (audited) and to a very much lesser extent the valuation on processing and other downstream revenues (which would also be audited). These are all price dependent. When the Saudis went into the IPO process with eyes wide open (they have international lawyers and banks working with them, they know all there is to know about requirements for disclosure etc) oil was much, much cheaper than it is now. If they over-estimated total valuation a year or so ago it very likely they are now underestimating it given the rise in commodity price.
If there is any reason why they are stalling it is likely because they are not sure if they actually need to do an IPO anymore. They are sitting on a windfall of cash they did not anticipate a year or more ago. If they can balance their budget going forward 5 years with current revenues they probably do not see a need to do an IPO at this moment. That being said having done all the ground work to put one in place they could pull the trigger with a relatively short time frame to actually be listed somewhere. I've been involved in a few IPO/RTO in the past. The biggest problem is if you are working from scratch it can take you up to a year to get everything done to list and the window around market cycles, price cycles, investor mentality, etc. is often shorter. Being in a position to pull the trigger when everything is coming up roses is enviable.