Aramco IPO is all about right timing, says Prince Mohammed

In an interview with the Time Magazine, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that there was no delay in launching the initial public offering (IPO) of state oil giant Saudi Aramco.

“We said we will be ready to IPO around 2018. And we are ready. We did all the laws. We did all the steps that are making us ready to IPO it. Now it’s a matter of choosing the right time,” he said.

As for the solar initiatives and their impact on oil, Prince Mohammed said that it will not harm the role of oil.

“Solar energy doesn’t harm oil because it’s not used for fuel to airplanes or ships and it will not go against the growing of the petrochemical demand,” he said.

The Crown Prince added that Saudi Arabia has all the elements of success, such as the high local demand, the whole supply chain for manufacturing solar panels and all the materials needed for that, in addition to lots of silica.

The silica in the north side of Saudi Arabia, its purity can reach 99.7 percent, he said.

“So the mix of the materials, supply chain, demand, sun are all available in Saudi Arabia. It doesn’t exist anywhere around the world. So if we say, “We cancel the project. We will not do the 200 gigawatts,” no one will do it. So we worked very hard in the last few months to gather the best partners for that from different areas from the world, from America, from China, from Japan, and now we are in the final stage to shape the new Aramco Saudi Arabia. Maybe since the biggest partner is Japan, we could maybe call it Jaramco or something like that,” Prince Mohammed said.

The project will help Saudi Arabia to save $40 billion every year. It will increase Saudi Arabia GDP by $20 billion. It will create 100,000 jobs, and it will help us to export because we will export for the whole world the cheapest solar panel and the highest efficient solar panel. So we are helping the whole world to produce energy, continuous energy cheaper than they ever have, he added.

Saudi Arabia until today used only 10 percent of its capacity, so the plans and the vision are shaped around this missing 90 percent, Prince Mohammed said.