The Telegraph: Aramco IPO funds will not revive bin Salman's 2030 vision

Saudi Arabia's modest sums from Aramco's "privatization" may not cover the kingdom's fiscal deficit for six months, the British newspaper The Telegraph said, noting that oil exporters are becoming lost in time as the world changes its energy policies.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said in his newspaper article that $ 25 billion would have no beneficial effect on Prince Mohammed bin Salman's 2030 vision, describing it as a theatrical plan to break oil addiction and diversify everything from automobile factories to weapons production.

He added that the crown prince would not go too far to launch the Neum project, his half-trillion-dollar white giant on the Red Sea.

The writer said the Saudi regime resorted to scams to sell 1.5% of Aramco's shares on the local Tadawul exchange, as it did at the Ritz-Carlton princes, doubling the leverage of banks to enable Saudi retail customers to buy shares.

Other foreigners will not touch Aramco even after it has been cut from $ 2 trillion to $ 1.6 trillion or $ 1.7 trillion, because theoretical oil reserves are not worth much these days because of the climate reaction, and large wealth funds have avoided lingering assets and litigation risks.

Risk of destiny
A country like Saudi Arabia has to cover the world's fourth largest military budget and the war in Yemen, in addition to financing Egypt and paying for the welfare system, which is the political cover for it, and will need every dollar of current revenue.

So buying shares in the state monopoly, which is at the same time the financial lifeblood of the regime, is a risk of destiny, wondering: Will the Crown Prince resist withdrawing Aramco's revenues through taxes so as not to leave anything to profits?

Put an end to OPEC
The volatility of Aramco is an important moment for OPEC, because it may put an end to the Organization earlier than it feared, especially as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries built the structure of spending on mere assumptions, such as the price of a barrel of oil at $ 100, and the continued prosperity of China, which has changed after five years.

The winter will be bleak for the OPEC-Russia alliance because they are once again at risk of falling prices unless they agree to further cut production, although global oil demand is expected to grow by 1.2 million barrels next year, due to supply from Canada, Brazil, Norway, Guyana and the United States. United will rise by 2.3 million barrels per day.

The risk for OPEC and Russia is that the "low for longer" price may extend into the middle of the next decade, when electric cars will be at the same price as gasoline and diesel engines, with much lower lifetime costs.

The International Energy Agency's energy forecast last week came as a scary reading for OPEC ministers, estimating that US production will continue to rise to an unexpected level of 20.9 million bpd by 2025.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), which is not a green friend, said growth in oil consumption would "slow to end" after 2025. "Countries whose economies are exclusively dependent on oil and gas are facing serious challenges."

Time out
The author concludes that this is what OPEC faces in light of the IAEA's "stated policy scenario" that allows carbon dioxide emissions to continue to rise by more than 100 million tonnes per year, risking planet safety. Oil demand to fifty million barrels a day by the middle of the century?

He believes that OPEC is still living a surreal denial, where it believes that its global view this month that oil and gas will continue to be within 53% of the global energy mix in 20 years, as is the case today.

This is a disregard for the IPCC's scientific warning, a global carbon tax, and a possible ban on the sale of fossil fuel-based vehicles to Europe, China, India and North America within a decade. from time.

The writer concluded that the world oil industry is living a politically intermittent time and financial deterioration, pointing out that the Saudi regime had to - instead of its efforts to sabotage the global climate summits decades ago - to listen to what is said.

Aramco, if it were on sale before the world woke up to the climate problem at the time of the oil boom and greedy Asian demand, the Saudis could have filled enough to cover the crown prince's dreams.