Riyadh - Mubasher: Saudi Arabia is determined to go through with the intimal public offering of the world’s biggest oil company, according to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who told Bloomberg that the IPO will be accomplished by 2021.

Previous delays put the highly-anticipated into question, but it seems that the IPO of Saudi Aramco, which is expected to raise around $100 billion is still a major part in the Saudi government vision to diversify the kingdom’s economy.

When asked about the IPO data, Prince Mohammed bin Salman said “I believe late 2020, early 2021,” as quoted by the news agency.

And regarding the company’s market valuation, he said that “the investor will decide the price on the day. I believe it will be above $2 trillion. Because it will be huge.”

“Everyone heard about the rumors of Saudi Arabia canceling the IPO of Aramco, delaying that, and that this is delaying Vision 2030. This is not right,” the prince stressed, explaining that the delay is attributed to Aramco’s desire to gain a strong presence in the petrochemicals industry, which would not been unfair to happen shortly after listing the company.

Saudi Aramco recently announced negotiations with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to purchase a stake in the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).

"If we want to have a really strong future for Aramco after 20, 30, 40 years from today, Aramco has to invest a lot in downstream because we know that the new demand for oil 20 years from now, it will be from petrochemicals," he explained, noting that if Aramco had developed a separate petrochemical business, Sabic would have definitely suffered.