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  • Aramco, TotalEnergies, and Saudi Investment Recycling Company (SIRC) assess development of sustainable aviation fuels plant

    Aramco, one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, TotalEnergies, a global multi-energy company that produces and markets energies, and Saudi Investment Recycling Company (SIRC), a major player that collects and turns organic materials into sustainable products in Saudi Arabia, today announced the signing of a Joint Development and Cost Sharing Agreement (JDCSA) to assess the potential development of a sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

  • How Saudi Aramco’s CFO Thinks About Dividends

    The world’s biggest oil producer is largely owned by the Saudi Arabian government, with less than 3% of shares trading freely on the country’s stock exchange following its initial public offering in 2019. For that reason, Aramco is focusing heavily on another option that CFOs have for returning capital to shareholders: dividends. The company is on course to allocate over $124 billion toward that payout this year, up from about $98 billion in 2023 and $75 billion in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s significantly more than its international peers. Shell, for example, spent more than $14 billion on buybacks in 2023, and $8.4 billion on dividends. The trend was similar at other energy firms — apart from at Norway’s Equinor, which is majority-owned by the government and allocated nearly $11 billion to dividends in 2023, while spending $5.6 billion on buybacks.

  • Saudi Aramco unit in talks to invest $1 billion in US software maker Mavenir, sources say

    Saudi Aramco's (2223.SE), opens new tab digital arm is in talks to take a significant minority stake in Mavenir, in a deal that is likely to value the U.S. telecommunications software maker at about $3 billion, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. Aramco Digital is in talks to invest about $1 billion in Mavenir and a deal is likely to be signed before the end of the year, the sources said, cautioning that a transaction is not guaranteed. The deal by Aramco Digital, the wholly-owned technology subsidiary of the oil giant, would be its first major transaction in the telecommunications industry as part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 plan, which focuses on technological advancements and economic diversification.

  • Saudi Aramco Plans Regular Debt Issues

    Saudi Aramco plans to regularly tap the bond market for debt issuance as it looks to optimize capital structure and widen its investor base, Ziad Al-Murshed, chief financial officer of the world’s biggest oil firm, told Bloomberg in an interview. “You’ll see us do a couple of things. One is, just take on more debt compared to use of equity,” Al-Murshed told Bloomberg. “It’s nothing to do with the dividend, it is optimizing our capital structure so that we end up with a lower weighted average cost of capital.” Aramco returned to the debt market this year, following three years of absence, with two bond issues in which it sold a combined $9 billion in debt.

  • Saudi Aramco CFO Driven Off Stage by Climate Protesters in US

    Climate protesters disrupted an MIT event with Saudi Arabian Oil Co. Chief Financial Officer Ziad Al-Murshed in a Boston suburb on Thursday, causing the executive to leave. About 15 people rushed onto the stage while Al-Murshed was speaking, waving posters with “murderer” written on them and chanting phrases such as “no more drilling rigs.” Al-Murshed, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumnus, exited the room and didn’t return. The organizers of the event, the MIT Sloan CFO Summit, said in a statement that “in abundance of caution, the decision was made to end the talk.” The incident is under investigation by the police, the statement said.

  • Aramco, Rongsheng Petrochemical Ink Deal to Progress Saudi Refinery Project

    Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Aramco) and Rongsheng Petrochemical Co. Ltd. signed an agreement Tuesday that brings them closer to greenlighting a planned expansion project at a refinery in the kingdom’s port city of Jubail. Earlier this year the Saudi oil giant and the Hangzhou, China-based company penned deals toward a potential joint venture within Aramco affiliate Saudi Aramco Jubail Refinery Co. (SASREF), which operates the 305,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery. On Tuesday in Beijing, Aramco, SASREF and Rongsheng Petrochemical inked an agreement that “outlines the cooperation mechanism and planning relating to the design and development of the project, which aims to expand SASREF’s refining and petrochemical capabilities while fostering international collaboration”, Aramco said in a statement online.

  • Aramco to Borrow More and Focus on Dividend Growth, CFO Says

    Distributions by the state-owned company are a key element of the kingdom’s finances, which have wobbled this year as Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman pushes his ambitious economic transformation plan. The company has strained its balance sheet in 2024, flipping to a net-debt position for the first time in two years, as it pays out a massive dividend. “You’ll see us do a couple of things. One is just take on more debt compared to use of equity,” Chief Financial Officer Ziad Al-Murshed said in an interview in Boston. “It’s nothing to do with the dividend, it is optimizing our capital structure so that we end up with a lower weighted average cost of capital.”

  • Aramco’s Latest Financial Results Suggest That Its Dividend Policy Is Unsustainable

    Aramco’s third quarter financial results show that while the company remains a cash generating machine, lower oil prices and weaker downstream margins have hurt its net income in 2024. The company’s net income was $84 billion in the first three quarters of 2024 compared to $95 billion during the same period in 2023.  Despite this drop in net income, Aramco has upped its dividend payout and increased its capital spending. The company will pay $124 billion of dividends in 2024 compared to $98 billion in 2023 and $75 billion in 2022. This reflects Aramco’s decision since the third quarter of 2023 to pay a performance-linked dividend in addition to its base dividend. The performance-related dividend is set at 70% of free cash flow in 2022 and 2023 (cash flow less capital spending and the base dividend). Guidance provided by Aramco executives during their recent earnings call with investors was that capital spending in 2024 would be in the range of $51 billion to $54 billion compared to $50 billion in 2023 and $39 billion in 2022. 

  • Saudi Aramco blames lower sales for drop in profit

    The profit decline “was mainly due to the impact of lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” an Aramco statement said. “This was partially offset by a reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses.” Aramco’s third-quarter average realised crude oil price was $79.30, down 11.2 percent from $89.30 in the same period in the previous year. Aramco will pay $31.1 billion in dividends for the third quarter, up 5.8 percent from $29.4 billion in the third quarter of 2023, despite the profit drop.

  • Aramco maintains dividend as profits slump, containing state deficit

    Saudi oil giant Aramco (2222.SE), opens new tab, by paying out generous dividends to the state, its biggest shareholder by far, has contained the country's fiscal deficit while increasing its own debts. The world's top oil exporter on Tuesday reported a 15.4% drop in third-quarter profit due to lower crude prices and weaker refining margins, but kept its dividend unchanged at $31.1 billion for the quarter, including $10.8 billion in performance-linked payouts.