Saudi Aramco Will Reveal Just How Much Oil Saudi Arabia Has

Saudi Arabia has decided to officially list shares in the state-owned Saudi Aramco, the world's largest producer of oil. It is expected that the company will immediately become the most valuable listed company on the planet. Along with the IPO, though, will be the big reveal of a number of secrets about Saudi Arabia's oil reserves, and global energy analysts are eagerly awaiting an answer to the question of exactly how much crude oil lies within the country's borders.

According to Khalid al-Falih, energy minister of Saudi Arabia, in a statement made to the Financial Times, the Saudi Aramco IPO would be the "most transparent national oil company listing of all time," with a number of industry secrets set to be revealed to potential investors.

Saudi Aramco, formerly controlled by the United States but nationalized for Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, has was previously said to have about 260 billion barrels of oil reserves available, according to Saudi officials. However, there have been little means of verifying those figures in the past, and numerous questions about various reserves and oil estimates lingered for decades. As part of the IPO process, independent audit figures are set to be released to the wider world.

Saudi Arabia announced plans to consider listing shares of Saudi Aramco on the stock market in January of 2016, fueling a number of questions and speculation about whether data on the country's oil holdings would be made available to the public. Should the independent audit reveal that the government's figure is accurate, it will mean that Saudi Arabia has successfully replaced every barrel of oil produced with verifiable oil reserves available in existing oil fields.

The decision to list Saudi Aramco on the market is part of the country's efforts at diversification, which some outsiders say must go along with greater transparency about how the Middle Eastern country's government generates and disperses finances. Regardless of the outcome for the country, the release of verifiable data on Saudi oil reserves is very likely going to disrupt the global oil market, as it will provide confirmation one way or another of how much oil the largest producer on the planet has, and, in turn, how long those reserves may last. According to Saudi reports from earlier this year, the country estimates its reserves will last for 70 years, but this figure was not reviewed by an outside independent party. It is safe to assume that potential investors in the IPO for Saudi Aramco will want to have that information easily available, as it speaks volumes about the company's (and Saudi Arabia's) future viability on the global market.