• Aramco acquired an additional 22.5% stake in Petro Rabigh from Sumitomo for USD 702 million, raising ownership to 60%.
• The deal includes a USD 1.4 billion capital injection and USD 1.5 billion loan waiver to strengthen Petro Rabigh’s balance sheet.
• Aramco aims to enhance Petro Rabigh’s transformation through asset upgrades, higher yields, and improved operational reliability.

Aramco

Saudi’s oil and energy giant, Aramco, acquired an additional 22.5% stake in Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company (Petro Rabigh).  This is in a USD 702 million deal from Sumitomo Chemical Corporation (Sumitomo). This brings its equity stake in Petro Rabigh to 60% while e Sumitomo retains an equity stake of 15%.

“We look forward to exploring closer integration with Petro Rabigh, with the aim of unlocking new opportunities and complementing Petro Rabigh’s broader transformation objectives, which include upgrading its product mix, enhancing asset reliability and optimizing operations,” said Hussain A. Al Qahtani, Aramco Senior Vice President of Fuels.

This transaction aims to enhance Aramco’s ability to support the transformation program underway at Petro Rabigh. This includes targeted asset upgrades to improve the yield of high-margin products and enhance plant reliability. Furthermore, this acquisition supports Aramco’s mission to promote value creation, business integration and portfolio diversification.

Acquisition 

As part of the transaction, Aramco and Sumitomo agreed to inject a total of USD 1.4 billion to partly prepay Petro Rabigh’s debt aiming to support its future growth opportunities and strengthen its balance sheet. This injection will involve the innovative issuance by Petro Rabigh of Class B shares. These shares will be fully subscribed to by Aramco and Sumitomo. Thus, both will be able to inject fresh capital without altering Petro Rabigh’s existing governance structure. In addition, it will prevent diluting the voting power of Petro Rabigh’s other shareholders. 

Additionally, both entities have also waived a total of USD 1.5 billion in shareholder loans to Petro Rabigh. The wave was completed in two phases in August 2024 and January 2025, aiming to improve its capital structure and partially remediating its accumulated losses.