Profit drops: Saudi Aramco suffers from the fall in the Oil price

The largest Oil company in the world holds, despite a sharp drop in profits in the second quarter of 2020, due to its high dividend. Saudi Aramco earned between the beginning of April and end of June to 6.57 billion Dollar (5.56 billion euros), 73.4 percent less than in the prior-year quarter. Nevertheless, it is to be paid in the third quarter for the second quarter, a quarterly dividend in the amount of 18.75 billion us dollars. Aramco chief Armin Nasser also reiterated on Sunday for the entire year of 2020, the shareholders should receive $ 75 billion in dividends despite the profit slump, which began in front of Corona.

Hanno Mußler

editor in the economy.

Saudi Aramco had sold on the occasion of its IPO in December, only 1.5 percent of its shares and is still firmly in the hands of the state. According to estimates by the International monetary Fund Saudi will deport Arabia this year, a state deficit of more than 12 percent. Saudi Aramcos dividends used to be. In June, the group had indicated that he could issue bonds to Finance the dividends. Nasser said on Sunday that Saudi Aramco still has an undrawn credit line of 10 billion dollars.

The rapid spread of the Coronavirus have dampened the demand for Oil, natural gas and Oil products, noted Nasser. "Muffled" sounds like an understatement, after all, the price for a Barrel (159 litres) of the American variety WTI slumped even briefly into the red. Saudi Arabia required, in accordance with previous information a Oil price of 83 dollars to Finance the state budget without borrowing.

"The worst is behind us"

But elsewhere, Oil companies suffer even more from the fall in Oil prices. As in the United States in April, many exclusively for the domestic manufacturing Fracker had to be given full bearing, your Oil under the production price to sell, applied for a lot of bankruptcy. The British Oil company BP announced that for the second quarter of a loss of 16.8 billion dollars. Taken together, the five largest Western Oil companies Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP, Total and Chevron from the beginning of April until the end of June, with a turnover of more than 131 billion dollars, a decline of 53 billion dollars. BP and Royal Dutch cut their dividends.