Energy giant Saudi Aramco announced on Sunday a 124% increase in its net profit in 2021 compared to 2020, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
In 2021, state oil company Aramco posted net profits of 412.4 billion Saudi riyals ($110 billion), more than double the $49 billion in 2020, and even 24.7% more than in 2019, the last year before the global crisis caused by the COVID19 pandemic, according to a statement from the group.
This announcement takes place in a context in which oil prices have skyrocketed, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The spectacular growth of the company last year almost reaches even the peak of 111,100 million dollars of earnings of 2018, which earned it to be considered the most profitable company in the world, with which it can give for more than overcome the pothole of 2020, in which its benefits fell 44.43% to 49,003 million dollars.
Aramco, which will publish its full results for 2021 on Monday, advanced its profit increase in a statement and attributed it to “higher crude prices, higher profit margins in the refinery and the chemical sector, and the consolidation of the results annual reports from Sabic”, the petrochemical company that bought the Dutch company DSM in June 2020.
The profits of 2021 show that the Saudi oil company, considered the largest in the world, has obtained a great performance from the strategy of a moderate monthly increase in production adopted by the so-called OPEC +, which integrates twenty of the main exporting countries of crude oil in the world, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Despite pressure from consumer countries, pressured by rising fuel prices, to speed up the rate of production, OPEC+ has maintained an increase of just 400,000 extra barrels per month since August.
This has boosted Aramco’s profits, which have yet to reflect recent gains caused by uncertainty over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a possible Western ban on Russian crude.
Aramco suffers attacks
Before communicating its results, the company suffered from new attacks by the Yemeni rebels against its facilities.
One of these attacks against the YASREF refinery, in the city of Yanbu on the Red Sea, has caused “a temporary reduction in production”, which, however, will be “compensated by the stocks” stored, “said the Saudi ministry of Energy without further details.
It also comes after a last attack by the Houthi rebels against the facilities of the energy giant in the south of Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of crude oil and a country that leads a military coalition in support of the Yemeni power against the insurgents, supported by Iran.
According to this coalition, Saudi air defenses destroyed one ballistic missile and nine drones, but the booby-trapped drones hit their targets, including an Aramco distribution station in the south and the company’s gas liquefaction plant in the west.
In 2019, several air strikes against two of the company’s facilities in the eastern region of the country temporarily halved the kingdom’s crude output.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a group that brings together the six Arab petro-monarchies, headed by Saudi Arabia, has proposed talks in Riyadh starting on March 29 to try to resolve the conflict in Yemen.
But the rebels have warned that they will not enter “enemy” territory, although they say they are not opposed to the beginning of the talks.
With information from EFE and AFP.
