The Saudi oil giant Aramco listed profits of $88.2 billion for 2019, down 20.6% over 2018’s profits of $111.1. “The decrease was primarily due to lower crude oil prices and production volumes, coupled with declining refining and chemical margins,” Aramco said in its annual report, issued on Sunday. It was the company’s first publicly-released report in recent decades, with the Saudi royal family having offered about 2% of its shares for sale late last year in an effort to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on oil for income. The report came as Saudi Arabia and Russia were in the midst of a price war over diverging approaches to the effect that burgeoning US shale oil production and coronavirus slowdowns had been having on world markets. Riyadh, which was coordinating its production plans with non-OPEC-member Moscow, took matters into its own hands recently by announcing it would increase production, thus driving down prices even more. “The recent COVID-19 outbreak and its rapid spread illustrate the importance of agility and adaptability in an ever-changing global landscape,” Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said in the annual report.
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