The collapse in oil prices has raised the risk that Saudi Aramco’s plan to buy $15-billion stake in Reliance Industries (RIL) hydrocarbon business may not go through, US-based brokerage Bernstein has warned.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, had agreed to a non-binding initial agreement last August to buy 20% stake in Reliance Industries’ oil to chemicals divisions with an enterprise value of $75 billion. The oil to chemicals division included RIL’s world’s largest refining complex, petrochemicals and fuels marketing businesses.
“With the collapse in oil prices, the risk is rising that the deal will not go has increased although we now value downstream at $55 billion gross, which is a 20% discount to Aramco valuation,” Bernstein said in a report on Wednesday, following an announcement that Facebook was picking up 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio for $5.7 billion.
Crude oil’s dramatic price collapse this year has shaken the global oil industry and sent some of the shale producers in the US to the bankruptcy court. Prices have fallen 70% this year to about $20 a barrel, a two-decade low. Brent had fallen below $16 a barrel on Wednesday.
And on Monday, even more dramatically, US oil prices had collapsed to -$37 a barrel.
Source: Economic Times