Russian fund to build investors pool for Aramco IPO: report

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF ) pledged on Thursday to set up a consortium of investors for the planned initial public offering (IPO) of state energy giant Saudi Aramco, Reuters reported.

“We see significant interest from Russian banks, from Russian investment banks and a number of other Russian investors, so we believe that we will be able to create a fairly significant consortium for these investments,” RDIF Head Kirill Dmitriev was quoted as saying at a conference in Sochi.

The fund has been working with Chinese investors to facilitate their participation in the IPO, which could become the world’s biggest, valuing Saudi Aramco at up to $2 trillion and raising more than $100 billion, Dmitriev added.

Chinese state oil companies were willing to become cornerstone investors in the IPO, sources told Reuters last year.

Saudi-Russian relations have been flourishing against the backdrop of a successful OPEC-led oil production pact.

RDIF and its partners from the Middle East, Asia and Japan have bought a “significant” amount of preferred shares in Russian state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, Dmitriev said.

Earlier on Thursday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak who led his country’s delegation in Saudi Arabia said that Russia’s largest non-state natural gas producer Novatek and Saudi Aramco have signed a memorandum on cooperation.

The two oil giants have been in talks over the Arctic LNG-2 project, which aims to start producing liquefied natural gas from 2022-2023, Novak said, adding that an agreement could be signed this year at an economic forum in St Petersburg.