By Handan Kazanci
ISTANBUL (AA) – Saudi Arabia's national oil company Aramco on Sunday reported a net income of $121.3 billion, a roughly 25% decline from $161.1 billion in 2022, according to the oil giant’s 2023 financial results.
Despite the drop, this was the second-highest-ever net income, the oil major said in a statement.
The decline is due to a combination of several factors, including lower crude oil prices and sales volumes, the statement added.
The company paid out $97.8 billion in dividends in 2023, a 30% increase compared to 2022, it noted.
“Our resilience and agility contributed to healthy cash flows and high levels of profitability, despite a backdrop of economic headwinds,” Aramco President & CEO Amin H. Nasser said, adding, “We also delivered for our shareholders with a 30% year-on-year increase in total dividends paid in 2023.”
“The recent directive from the government to maintain our Maximum Sustainable Capacity at 12 million barrels per day provides increased flexibility, as well as an opportunity to focus on increasing gas production and growing our liquids-to-chemicals business,” Nasser added.
The oil giant expects 2024 capital investments to be approximately $48 to $58 billion, growing until around the middle of the decade, according to the statement.
“The directive to maintain Maximum Sustainable Capacity at 12 million barrels per day, mainly from deferral of projects not yet commissioned and reductions in infill drilling, is expected to reduce capital investment by approximately $40 billion between 2024 and 2028,” it added.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia ordered its national oil company, Saudi Aramco, to decrease its crude oil production capacity by 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Aramco “received a directive from the Ministry of Energy to maintain its Maximum Sustainable Capacity (MSC) at 12 million bpd and not to continue increasing its MSC to 13 million bpd,” the company said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia has been shouldering most of the production cuts for the OPEC+ group.
The country announced at the group’s last meeting in November that it would continue the voluntary cut of 1 million bpd in the first quarter of 2024.