Saudi Arabia mulls reviving Aramco share sale

Saudi Arabia is considering reviving plans for a follow-on share offering in state oil company Saudi Aramco to raise at least 40 billion riyals ($10 billion) as early as February, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report follows the Saudi government's order on Tuesday for Aramco to halt its oil expansion plan.

Saudi Arabia's surprise reversal of its oil expansion plan was at least six months in the making and spurred by uncertainty over the market's need for additional spare capacity, an industry source told Reuters.

Saudi Aramco is the world's biggest oil company, with a market value of $2.02 trillion. It completed the world's largest initial public offering in late 2019, raising $25.6 billion and later selling more shares to raise the total to $29.4 billion.

Its shares were down about 2 percent after the report on the follow-on offering. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Saudi government directly holds a 90.19 percent stake in Aramco, the sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF) 4 percent, and PIF subsidiary Sanabil another 4 percent, according to LSEG data.

In September of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Aramco was considering selling a stake worth as much as $50 billion through a secondary share offering on the Riyadh bourse after consultations with advisers.

Reuters