Saudi Arabia plans to sell less than 5 percent of its state oil company Saudi Aramco [SDABO.UL] through an initial public offering (IPO), Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Monday.
He said in a television interview he expected Aramco, the world’s biggest energy company, to be valued at more than $2 trillion and that he wanted it to be transformed into a holding company with an elected board.
Subsidiaries of the company would also be sold by IPO, as part of a privatization drive and to bring more transparency to the oil giant, Prince Mohammed said.
“If one percent of Aramco is offered to the market just one percent it will be the biggest IPO on earth,” he said.
Aramco was once run by Americans but has long been a Saudi state corporation. It dwarfs all in the industry, with crude reserves of 265 billion barrels, more than 15 percent of global oil deposits.
It produces more than 10 million barrels per day, three times as much as the world’s largest listed oil company, ExxonMobil, while its reserves are more than 10 times bigger. If Aramco were ever to go public, it would probably become the first company to be valued at more than $1 trillion.
