One of the best kept secrets in oil over the past decades has been how much money Saudi oil giant Aramco has been making from extracting what’s probably the lowest-cost oil in the world. Aramco has never reported such figures, and as an entirely state-owned enterprise, it was not obliged to do so. But now that it aims to list 5 percent of its shares—more likely in 2019 than in H2 2018 as initially targeted—it will have to report numbers, at the very least in its IPO prospectus. While speculation as to when and where Saudi Aramco will list ranges from the Saudi stock market only in 2019 to “we’re ready for an IPO, we’re just waiting for the right time”, Bloomberg News has the scoop—Aramco generated US$33.8 billion in net income for the first half of 2017. This figure—in absolute terms—is mind-blowing—it shows that Aramco is not only […]