DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi oil giant Aramco reported half-year profits Tuesday of $56.3 billion, down from the year before due to weakening volumes sold amid worries about the global economy.
Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., said its overall revenue for the half-year was $220.7 billion, up from $218.6 billion the year before. Profits in 2023 were $61.9 billion, nearly $5 billion higher.
“The decrease was primarily a result of lower crude oil volumes sold, weakening refining margins and lower finance and other income,” Aramco said in a filing on Riyadh's Tadawul stock exchange. “This was partially offset by higher crude oil prices and lower production royalties compared to the same period last year and lower income taxes and zakat,” or Islamic charitable contributions.
Aramco will pay dividends of $20.3 billion for the second quarter and a performance-linked dividend of $10.8 billion, the company said. It hopes its overall dividend for the year will be over $124 billion.
While a sliver of Aramco trades on the Tadawul, the vast majority of the firm is held by Saudi Arabia's government, fueling its expenditure and providing wealth to its Al Saud royal family.
Saudi Arabia, a leader in the OPEC cartel, has allied with Russia and others outside of the group to try to keep production down to boost global oil prices. Benchmark Brent crude traded around $77 a barrel on Tuesday after Japan's Nikkei stock market plunged 12.4% Monday in its worst single-day decline since 1987.
It marked the latest in a global sell-off that began the previous week. A report Friday showed U.S. employers slowed their hiring in July by much more than economists expected. That was the latest piece of data on the United States economy to come in weaker than expected. It’s all raised fear the Federal Reserve has pressed the brakes on the U.S. economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in hopes of stifling inflation.
The Nikkei bounced back Tuesday morning, nearly recouping those losses.
Crude oil prices collapsed in the pandemic but rose again in 2022 on the back of Russia’s war on Ukraine, going as high as nearly $140. That sparked tension between the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia, but prices have since come down to a six-month low over concerns over the wider global economy. That's made the price at the pump less of an issue ahead of the November election between former U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Aramco has a market value of $1.7 trillion, making it the world’s fifth-most valuable firm, behind Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Alphabet, which owns Google. Aramco stock meanwhile has fallen by nearly a fifth over the past year as oil prices dropped.
Aramco reported making a $121 billion profit in 2023, down from its 2022 record due to lower energy prices.
Saudi Arabia’s vast oil resources, located close to the surface of its desert expanse, make it one of the world’s least expensive places to produce crude. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hopes to use the oil wealth to pivot the kingdom off oil sales, through projects such as his planned $500 billion futuristic desert city, called Neom. But lower oil prices have Saudi Arabia reportedly looking at curtailing some of those ambitions as the kingdom likely faces looming budget deficits.
Meanwhile, activists criticized the profits amid global concerns about the burning of fossil fuels accelerating climate change.
FILE - Storage tanks are seen at the North Jeddah bulk plant, an Aramco oil facility, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia's hugely popular former leftist president, Evo Morales, on Monday called on supporters to take to the streets in protest against his bitter political rival, current President Luis Arce, who hours earlier accused Morales on national TV of trying to overthrow him.
Morales’ appeal to Bolivia’s farmers, miners and peasants followed President Arce's unprecedented televised speech late Sunday lambasting his former mentor. Accusing Morales of trying to sabotage his administration and undermine democracy, Arce escalated a high-stakes power struggle that has pushed Bolivia to the brink.
“Enough, Evo!” Arce exclaimed. “Until now, I have tolerated your attacks and slander in silence. But putting the lives of the people at risk is something I cannot tolerate.”
Arce, who took office in 2020 and has struggled to govern with his ruling party riven by disagreements, alleged that Morales’ attempts to mobilize popular support and run in Bolivia’s presidential election next year was “putting democracy at risk."
"You are threatening the entire country," Arce said, alleging Morales sought to return to power by “means fair or foul."
His dramatic speech dredged up the chaos and bloodshed of 2019, when Morales ran for an unconstitutional third term and won. After accusations of fraud sparked mass protests, Morales resigned under pressure from the army, in what his supporters call a coup, and went into exile. At least 36 people were killed in the ensuing crackdown by security forces.
Morales, who served as Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, has vowed to unleash unrest if he is stopped from running in the elections scheduled for August 2025.
Ever since the constitutional court last year barred the leftist icon from running for president, the coca cultivators, Indigenous groups and miners — whom Morales represented during his presidency from 2006 to 2019 — have repeatedly come to his defense with street protests, marches and road blockades.
Morales encouraged the international community to follow his so-called “March to Save Bolivia" on Tuesday from the southeast village of Caracollo to Bolivia's administrative capital of La Paz. He described the march — 85 kilometers (53 miles) by foot along a highway — as a natural expression of protest against the failure of Arce’s government to fix the worsening economic crisis.
Firing back at Arce, he insisted Monday he had no selfish ulterior motives.
“The march is the response of a people fed up with their unthinking government, which has maintained absolute silence in the face of the crisis, corruption and the destruction of stability,” Morales wrote on social media platform X. “President Arce is not only desperate, but also confused.”
Over the past year, the Arce-Morales rift has increasingly polarized the country, tainting Bolivia’s politics and creating a sense of turmoil that soldiers sought to seize upon in June in an alleged coup attempt.
On Monday, peasants and workers flocked to the main road leading to Bolivia’s tourist hotspot of Lake Titicaca, cutting off traffic under the watchful gaze of riot police and calling on Arce to resign.
“It’s an incompetent government that we have, and it won’t solve the economic crisis,” said Pablo Merma, a peasant leader of the so-called Red Ponchos, radical Indigenous activists from the high plains who rallied Monday against the president. “We are not afraid of you, Arce.”
Although Arce was Morales’ former economy minister and his candidate in Bolivia’s 2020 elections, the erstwhile allies began vying for power after Morales’ 2021 political comeback.
Bolivia’s political stagnation and profound economic crisis — with fuel scarce and and the central bank dangerously short on foreign currency reserves — has caused some Bolivians once outraged over Morales’ strongman tendencies to grow nostalgic for the ex-leader’s transformation of Bolivia’s economy and remarkable reduction of poverty.
Rocks block a highway towards Lake Titicaca in Vilaque on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The rocks were placed by people protesting for the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Rocks block a highway towards Lake Titicaca in Vilaque on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The roadblock was placed by protesters demanding the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Police keep protesters from blocking more lanes as they protest for the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy in Corapata, on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Police patrol at a roadblock in Vilaque on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The roadblock was placed by protesters demanding the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
