Saudi Arabia's crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman stated on Friday that the highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of the state-owned oil-giant Saudi Aramco will go through by "late 2020, early 2021," while once again pricing the company at $2 trillion or more.
He stressed that investing in the downstream oil sector is crucial for Aramco's future in the coming decades, citing the company's pending deal with the Saudi chemical giant Sabic as a good example. "If we want to have a really strong future for Aramco after 20, 30, 40 years from today, Aramco has to invest a lot in downstream because we know that the new demand for oil 20 years from now, it will be from petrochemicals," the prince told Bloomberg.
