the most important reason the Saudis are reconsidering the IPO is that the government simply does not want to subject the company to an independent audit that would for the first time since 1980 determine whether the country has been telling the truth about its oil reserves.
There will be resistance among the Kingdom's hoi polloi to allowing money to leave the country. If their opinion counts for anything?
In my humble opinion they have been LYING about amount of reserves. period. What else were they going to do Pstarr
And how exactly can you physically audit these reserves? Does the “auditor” check the physical state of every Saudi field? Not a chance. Seems its all just confirmation of paperwork and the math. They are just taking their word for it. And kind of suspicious that at the time of auditing these companies had service contracts with Aramco
Do I really need to explain that?
The Aramco IPO may now be history, put on indefinite hold several weeks ago, but Saudi Arabia's funding needs have never been greater. As a result, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MbS, has come up with a "novel" scheme to raise tens of billions for the government. According to the WSJ, the de facto Saudi leader is forcing urging Aramco, also known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, to raise debt to buy a controlling stake in a petrochemical company from the country’s sovereign-wealth fund. The money would then go to the government - whose latest fund-raising strategy, we remind readers, was to round up the country's oligarchs and hold them in a "hotel" until they paid up - to be spent as MbS sees fit. .
Should the deal go through, and there are many reasons why it won't, it would give the Public Investment Fund between $50 billion and $70 billion for all or part of its stake in Saudi Basic Industries, or Sabic. Controlled by the state, Sabic is also the country’s largest publicly listed company, with a market cap of about $100 billion.
Simplifying the money flow: the cash goes from international yield chasers, to a consortium of banks, to Aramco, to Sabic, to the Saudi government
Note: the orange boxes represent intended additions by field so for instance MNIF – Manifa (Arab Heavy, API 29). Not coincidentally Manifa was the last great field produced by Saudi Arabia. Not only is it a somewhat heavy grade (with less gasoline parts) but the oil is highly sulfurous with heavy metals and expensive to process. The bottom of the barrel as it were
Yet SA had previously stated such an intent, a goal has been published.
And the world of oil consumers (as represented by various government agencies) had assumed such an outcome.
Not OPEC. OPEC doesn't exist anymore.
Reaffirming the continued commitment of the participating producing countries in the ‘Declaration of Cooperation’ (DOC) to a stable market, the mutual interest of producing nations, the efficient, economic, and secure supply to consumers, and a fair return on invested capital, and noting the overall improvement in market conditions and sentiment, and the return of confidence and investment to the oil industry.
Recalling the 171st OPEC Conference Resolution reached on 30 November 2016 for a production adjustment of 1.2 million barrels a day (mb/d) for OPEC Member Countries, with the understanding reached with key non-OPEC participating countries, including The Russian Federation, to contribute a production adjustment of 0.6 mb/d.
Recalling the DOC reached on 10 December 2016; and noting that countries participating in the DOC have exceeded the required level of conformity that had reached 147% in May 2018.
Accordingly, the 4th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting hereby decided that countries will strive to adhere to the overall conformity level, voluntarily adjusted to 100%, as of 1 July 2018 for the remaining duration of the DOC and for the JMMC to monitor the overall conformity level and report back to the OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting.
But at what price does capacity become reality? No mention in EIA or any definition. SA was unable to bring 12 mbpd online as promised innumerable times during the six years crude was priced $100/barrel.
Done playing for now
I was hoping you might voice your opinion on the anomaly of SA's stated reserve count? How is it that they've maintained a reserve of 285 billion bbls over the past 3 1/2 decades despite pumping over 100 billion barrels during that timeframe?
Also - You mentioned that the firms whom conducted the audits on the reserves found that they were in line with the figures that Aramco put out. Are those firms legally bound to confirm that one way or another at this point in time, considering the delays in the IPO? What I guess I'm asking is, could they be held liable for misrepresenting Saudi reserves at this point, considering the actualy listing of Aramco is still way off? Not sure if that question is entirely cogent - if not, my apologies and i'll try and rephrase it.
I guess that means the Toronto Stock Exchange is out of the running as the site for the long delayed ARAMCO IPO----not that there is any sign of the IPO being listed anyway.
In the running still is the NYSE, London and Hong Kong.
You must have missed all the talk about ARAMCO doing the IPO at home in the KSA bourse as a way to avoid the disclosures of concerning their financial practices and oil reserves that would be required if they did it in a western marketplace.
And recent reports in the WSJ and elsewhere suggest ARAMCO may not do the IPO at all.
ARAMCO has already done the reserve and financial audits? If they were worried about disclosure in those areas why would they have ever started down the path?
Ignorance? Stupidity? Arrogance? Or maybe they just changed their minds. Who knows?
But the fact remains that the reserve and financial audits have not been released for public examination, as would be required if ARAMCO was to actually move forward with the IPO in a western bourse.
If they were worried about disclosure they would have stopped the process early on
and would not be out there now trying to sell a bond in international markets.
There have been a few IPO where the underwriters lost money…at least on paper. The underwriters are typically huge investors: 100’s of $millions if not $billions. If the underwriters won’t commit to a company’s acceptable price then no IPO.
Earth to crocdoc. Perhaps that is why the IPO process has been stalled since early on in 2016.....
We hope that 2018 will be the right time, but ultimately we have to make sure the market is ready,
Wrong again. ARAMCO selling bonds has nothing to do with the IPO. ARAMCO is selling the bonds to finance their takeover of SABIC which is going ahead this year.
At each and every opportunity since they started down this road ARAMCO had stated they were on target with their original goal of an end 2018 listing.
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