Saudi Aramco chairman defends oil giant’s possible IPO move

“Our prediction is that we will see some adjustment but it will happen toward the end of this year”, Amin al-Nasser, president and chief executive officer of the state-owned company, told a business forum in the Saudi capital.

Global crude prices have plunged from above $100 a barrel in early 2014 to below $32 a barrel on Monday.

Saudi Arabia has looked to diversify its holdings in the past several years in order to reduce its dependence on oil, while making a shift toward the privatization of oil companies.

But Falih told reporters on the sidelines of Monday’s Global Competitiveness Forum that his country is not to blame for low prices. Khalid al-Falih spoke after a conference in Riyadh to say, “Demand will grow, as it has already started in 2015, and there will be a period not far into the future [when] demand will catch up with supply”.

CNN Money reported Saudi Arabia plans to keep the price of oil nice and low.

Saudi Arabia is pursuing foreign investment with a new sense of urgency as the prolonged oil price slump forces the worlds largest oil exporter to find alternative sources of revenue.

Meanwhile, Iraq may raise output further this year, reaching levels as high as 4 million barrels per day (bpd) from the country’s south, a senior Iraqi oil official said.

“One is to bundle together a significant downstream portfolio” such as its chemicals and marketing operations.

Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul index, which lost over 20% of its value during the 1st 3 weeks of Y 2016, gained 6.7% on opening and was trading up 2.7% pre-close. The kingdom could survive in this pricing environment for “a long, long time”, he said.

Mr. Falih said that despite the subsidy cuts, Saudi Arabia’s industry and petrochemicals remain “probably the most competitive in the world, certainly on the long term sustainable basis”.

“Saudi Aramco will be a bridge for a transition away from itself”, he indicated. The health ministry is considering putting all public hospitals under the management of independent companies and turning some hospitals into non-profit foundations, said Al-Falih, who is also minister of health.

“A decline is to be expected after a giant move like we just had”, said Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA in NY.

Middle East infrastructure expert Sachin Kerur of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com said: “This is an unsurprising development”.