Saudi Aramco records 10% hike in share price as it debuts on the Tadawul stock exchange on Wednesday

Sources
from the Riyadh stock exchange reported earlier on Wednesday that the Saudi
Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company, Saudi Aramco, is recording
a blockbuster debut on the stock exchange. Share prices were reported to have
hiked by 10% (maximum allowed) as compared to the initial public offering (IPO)
price. The sharp increase in the share prices is expected to upgrade the market
valuation of the petroleum company to $2 trillion, which was originally
desired by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ahead of the IPO.

Saudi
Aramco’s Stock Is Currently Trading At 35.2 Riyals

The
IPO price for Saudi Aramco on the Riyadh stock exchange was previously agreed
at 32 riyals per share. As of Wednesday, however, the stock was seen exchanging
hands as high as 35.2 riyals that hit the maximum limit for daily price movement
permitted by the Tadawul exchange.

Currently
at $1.88 trillion, the state-owned petroleum and natural gas giant has earned
the reputation of the most valuable company that is publicly available to trade
across the globe. On the contrary, however, in terms of free floats, it will
remain at the bottom at only 1.5%.

Compared
to Saudi Aramco, the U.S based oil giant, Exxon Mobil, currently has a market
cap of only $300 billion while the U.S based tech giant, Apple, has lost the
title of the most valuable listed company with a market cap of $1.2 trillion.

Thanks
to Crown Prince’s years-long efforts, the oil
giant raised $25.6 billion last week in its IPO, the highest ever raised by
any firm. Inviting foreign investments, Saudi Aramco contributed the most to
diversify the kingdom’s economy.

Iran
May NOT Be Behind The September Attacks On Saudi Aramco’s Oil Facilities

In separate news, the UN investigators have recently announced that they are unable to find substantial evidence that Iran was behind the attacks on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities. The United States and Saudi Arabia had jointly blamed Iran for drone and missile attacks in September. As per Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres of the United Nations, while the team is still collecting additional evidence and analysis is undergoing, the evaluation of the cruise missile and drones’ debris has so far not provided any evidence that the weaponry was of Iranian origin.

Despite the Saudi defense ministry and the U.S Secretary of state reiterating on multiple occasions that the debris of the weapons used in the attack suggests Iranian origin, authorities from Iran have repeatedly refused to take responsibility for the attack.