Preparations to float shares of Saudi Aramco next year are proceeding, but no decision has been taken yet on the venue for the international listing, the chief executive of the state oil company has said.

China is offering to buy up to 5% of Saudi Aramco directly, in a move that could give Saudi Arabia the flexibility to consider various options for its plan to float the world’s biggest oil producer on the stock market.

Oil prices stabilised after Saudi Aramco said it plans to make “the deepest customer allocation cuts in its history” in oil supplies in November to help reduce global inventories and balance the market.

Saudi Arabia aims to sell about 5% of state oil company Saudi Aramco in an IPO next year, and stock exchanges from the UK to Japan are vying for what may be the world’s richest IPO.

Opec moved yesterday to cap Nigerian oil output and called on several members to boost compliance with production cuts to help clear excessive global stocks and support flagging prices.

Saudi oil major Aramco has invested in former UCD campus company OxyMem, adding further to the Irish company’s growing shareholder base.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has raised pricing for July sales of all crude grades to Asia, the US, and north-west Europe.

Oil prices jumped about 3% yesterday, with Brent hitting one-year highs, after Russia said it was ready to jointhe Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in curbing crude output and Algeria’s oil minister said he expected similar commitments from other non-Opec producers.

Exxon Mobil was demoted from the top credit rating by Standard & Poor’s for the first time since the Great Depression as the collapse of the biggest oil-market rally in history strangled cash flows.

The top US intelligence official has said cyberterrorism is the leading worldwide threat to the country’s security.

THE seizure by Somali pirates of the MV Sirius Star, an oil supertanker owned by Saudi company Aramco, some 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya, is a brazen act that represents a major threat to both the world’s energy security and the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for the immediate release of the hijacked crew of a giant oil tanker – including two Britons – after the vessel anchored off the coast of Somalia.

Somali pirates who hijacked a Saudi-owned oil tanker with 25 crew on board have opened negotiations, the vessel’s operator said today.

SOMALI pirates hijacked a supertanker hundreds of miles off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Saudi-owned ship loaded with crude and its 25-member crew, the US Navy said.

Somali pirates are taking a hijacked oil tanker with two Britons on board to a port in Somalia, the US Navy said today.

An explosion on a gas pipeline has killed 28 workers in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Saudi national oil company Aramco said today.

Suicide bombers who targeted the world’s largest oil processing centre were thwarted by guards who fired on their cars, exploding both vehicles and killing the attackers.

Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich today agreed to sell Russian oil company Sibneft for £7.36bn (€10.79bn).