Liam Denning, Columnist

Aramco’s Cash Flow Gets the Royal Treatment

Saudi Arabia adds a sweetener to lure investors to the IPO.

October 3, 2019 at 2:58 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Crude oil storage tanks stand in the Juaymah tank farm at Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

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Saudi Aramco has worked hard these past few weeks on displaying resiliency. This week, its owner chipped in to help.

While Saudi Arabian Oil Co., to give its full name, focuses on repairing damage from last month’s attacks, the government wants to shore up the pitch for the forthcoming biggest IPO ever. The latest tool is a presentation posted to Aramco’s website. Like the recent earnings call, it is brief. But tucked in toward the back was an eye-catching number: $75 billion. That is the company’s guidance for a “base dividend” in 2020; a figure 50% higher than the combined dividends of BP Plc, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA in the year through June.