Saudi Aramco bond makes sense in Kingdom’s changing circumstances:
Reports that Saudi Aramco is to tap the international bond markets for the first time were met with the customary official tight lips from the company and its spokespeople, but from the reaction of “people familiar with the situation” it is at least an option being considered by the world’s biggest oil company in a fast-changing global environment for energy and finance.
If the detail of the reports is true, Aramco will this week ask the Saudi Capital Markets Authority for approval for a $2 billion tranche of Islamic debt in the form of sukuk, to be followed soon after by an international bond issue of maybe four times that size.
Aramco has raised debt on local markets before, as have various joint ventures in which it is a partmer, but this would be the first time this debt is traded, showing the increasingly sophistication of the Kingdom’s capital markets.
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