“Everyone is almost certain it (IPO) is not going to happen,” a senior Aramco executive told the Wall Street Journal yesterday, confirming already existing doubts about the deal that all see as maker or breaker of the Vision 2030 economic reform program spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed. Preparations for the listing have stalled, apparently, and some in the Saudi government are beginning to doubt it will ever take place. This is the opposite of what officials have been saying publicly: that preparations are going well and that the IPO is on track to take place some time in the first quarter of 2019. The original schedule was for the listing to be done by the end of this year, but it turned out preparations will take longer. Besides, oil prices were lower than Aramco’s management would have liked, and that too contributed to the decision to delay the IPO. […]