What’s So Secret About Saudi Aramco?

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Saudi Aramco, the giant oil company, has plans to buy a majority stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the giant petrochemical manufacturing firm. But now they’re thinking twice:

Saudi Aramco no longer plans to launch what would have been one of the world’s largest-ever corporate-bond sales to fund a roughly $70 billion stake in the kingdom’s national petrochemical firm….People familiar with Aramco’s financing discussions say the oil firm is now worried about the level of disclosure required for a bond issue and whether the uncertain outlook for the oil market might damp demand for debt or increase the cost of borrowing.

Isn’t that intriguing? I wonder what Aramco is so eager to hide? Might it have anything to do with the actual size of their proven reserves?

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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