Khalid Al-Falih

An initial public offering of Saudi Aramco could be on the local or international markets but would not include Saudi energy reserves, the company’s chairman told Al-Arabiya channel.

“The reserves would not be sold, but the company’s ability to produce from the reserves is being studied,” Khalid Al-Falih told the channel in an interview from Davos.

Al-Falih said there would be legal studies to make sure that what is offered is not the Kingdom’s crude reserves “but the company’s ability to convert the production of these reserves to a financial value that the owners can benefit from.

“The economic value of Saudi Aramco as a company is what will be offered. Naturally, the primary field of Saudi Aramco’s work is managing the reserves of Saudi Arabia,” Al-Falih said.

“The reserves belong to the state but the company’s ability to convert these reserves… into a financial value and at the same time for the company to have a portion of these profits will be part of the value of the company,” he told Al-Arabiya.

In an interview with The Economist earlier this month, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Riyadh might sell shares in Aramco as part of a privatization drive.

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