Aramco Earnings Plunge By 25% As Low Oil Prices Persist

Saudi Aramco reported on Tuesday a net income of US$16.66 billion for the first quarter of 2020, down from net earnings of US$22.2 billion for Q1 2019, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the oil price crash that Saudi Arabia itself helped to worsen with the oil price war in March. Despite the profit slump of US$6 billion in Q1, Aramco’s free cash flow was more resilient and fell to US$15 billion from US$17.4 billion in Q1 2019. “The first quarter of 2020 was impacted by declining global crude oil demand resulting from COVID-19…