Aramco’s $100 Billion Gas Question Is Not Yet an IPO

More than $100 billion is the number attached to Saudi Aramco’s gas plans. It is also the easiest number to misread. Bloomberg says the company has hired Evercore to advise on creating a standalone gas division, which could eventually be opened to outside investors. The figure is an unnamed-source estimate of what the whole gas business might be worth in a future listing—not a sale price, money Aramco is set to receive, or a valuation established by an actual transaction. Neither Aramco nor Evercore has publicly confirmed the advisory appointment. ²

The organizational proposal came first. On September 22, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the plans, that Aramco was considering turning its two principal operating divisions—upstream and downstream—into three. Gas would become a division with its own chief, supporting expanded domestic production and Aramco’s international liquefied-natural-gas business. Reuters described possible future unit listings as an option, not a decision to sell shares. ⁴

That sequence matters. The September 28 television discussion was not news of a fresh Evercore signing, much less a completed separation. Bloomberg’s earlier report also said Boston Consulting Group had advised on separating gas operations under an effort called Project Gamma. Evercore’s reported involvement concerns advice on restructuring. These accounts describe work on a plan; they do not establish that Aramco has put a new company into operation. ²⁵¹

A gas chief and a place on the organization chart would give the business a clearer management identity. They would not, by themselves, answer the questions a prospective investor would ask of a separately owned company: which fields and plants belong to it, how its LNG interests would be assigned, who would govern it, and what its own accounts would show. The reported plans settle none of those points. Nor do they establish whether Aramco would first create a separate legal entity or invite investors into the business by some route other than a stock-market listing. ²⁴

The distinction is important because Aramco’s gas expansion is real even if the corporate split remains prospective. Its 2025 annual report says production began that year at Jafurah, an unconventional gas field. On February 26, 2026, Aramco announced that Jafurah production had started and that its Tanajib Gas Plant was operating. Those are milestones in building and running gas facilities, not evidence that the facilities have been assigned to a new division. ¹²¹³

Aramco’s stated goal is to increase sales-gas production capacity by approximately 80% by 2030, measured against 2021 production levels. That is a capacity goal, not growth already delivered. Separately, a reported Jafurah target is up to 2 billion standard cubic feet of sales gas a day by 2030. It describes hoped-for future output from the field, not its present production rate or the output of a proposed gas division. ¹³⁴⁵

This gives the restructuring a business rationale without proving its financial payoff. A dedicated management team could make an expanding gas operation easier to run and easier for outsiders to assess. But until Aramco specifies the division’s boundaries and reports its finances, investors cannot tell from the organizational proposal alone what they would be buying—or whether they will be offered a stake at all.

Bloomberg’s estimate of more than $100 billion concerns the potential value of the entire gas business if a future IPO or minority listing is pursued. A minority sale would involve only part of that business. Its proceeds would depend on the stake sold and the price agreed, neither of which has been announced. The estimate is therefore neither an IPO fundraising target nor a present market capitalization for a listed gas company. The plans remain under discussion and could change. ²

The other large figure in the coverage—up to $35 billion—belongs to an earlier, wider set of prospective Aramco asset deals. Bloomberg described that potential fundraising push in May 2026, after an $11 billion lease agreement covering some natural-gas facilities. It also reported a separate proposal involving a real-estate sale and leaseback. These transactions and proposals help explain why Aramco might look for ways to bring outside capital into its businesses; they do not assign $35 billion of proceeds to a gas-division IPO. ³⁵⁴¹

Neither number should be read as an approved deal. The May estimate did not set out a completed, itemized programme worth $35 billion, and the September gas valuation depends on a transaction that has not been authorized. Combining them would turn two conditional reports about different things—asset-deal proceeds and whole-business value—into a fundraising promise Aramco has not made. ³⁵²

For now, the consequential choice is more basic than an IPO: whether Aramco actually gives gas its own operating division, and what it puts inside it. The reported Evercore appointment suggests advice is being sought on that choice, but remains unconfirmed publicly. A clearer corporate boundary could precede a sale. It is not the sale itself. ²⁴