Aramco hunts for new China investments as oil profit slips

Amid shrinking profits, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said the world’s biggest oil company is shopping for new investments in China.

Nasser spoke in Beijing on Monday at the China Development Forum, where he said Aramco is “currently” supporting projects in the areas of Fujian, Liaoning, Zhejiang and Tianjin.

“I emphasize ‘currently’ because we are continuing to identify additional opportunities, which include energy and chemicals, as well as technology,” Nasser said.

Aramco’s interest in China, Nasser said, rests partly on its emergence as the “world’s largest consumer and producer of petrochemicals, accounting for nearly half of global demand, and it’s becoming a major hub for the entire chemicals industry value chain, which will be critical to industries of the future.”

The conference in Beijing was the first stop for international executives and policymakers trying to navigate trade tensions between the U.S. and China, with the subject hitting center-stage this week at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan.

Saudi Aramco execs go on the road to promote share sale

Saudi Aramco executives are traveling this week to recruit international investors for the oil company’s $12 billion secondary offering, a departure from its IPO held five years ago that was marketed primarily to the home crowd.

Aramco CEO Amin Nasser and CFO Ziad Al Murshed will be attending roadshow events in London while others are planning to join presentations in New York, Bloomberg reports.

Institutional investors can submit orders until June 6 for the $1.8 trillion company’s share sale that began the booking process on Sunday and was oversubscribed within hours.

Before Aramco’s $29.4 billion IPO in 2019, overseas investors showed limited interest, leaving the government reliant on local buyers.

The kingdom scrapped a roadshow event in London and decided against presentations in the U.S. and Japan, choosing instead to focus on its enthusiastic domestic audience, who made the IPO the largest in history.