Saudi Arabia is set to launch its first international bond to help shore up the country's finances in the wake of persistently low oil prices, says The Financial Times. Oil prices have dropped from highs in the triple digits in June 2014 to about $40 to $50 per barrel.Rico says it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys... (And Rico's friend Kelley, always perceptive, noted that the Saudis are floating international bond issue due to low oil prices. Terrorists to hold bake sale to fund jihad!
The The Financial Times, citing unnamed sources, said that Saudi Arabia is talking to international banks to start arranging a sovereign debt issue. The size of the bond was not specified in the report.
The bond is not the first round of borrowing for Saudi Arabia this year, as the country burns through its cash pile.
In April of 2016, Saudi Arabia raised a ten billion dollar bond from JPMorgan, HSBC, and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in the form of a five-year loan, which was over-subscribed.
This loan will increase Saudi Arabia's debt levels from seven percent of GDP in 2015 to fifty percent of GDP by 2020.
Saudi Arabia is desperate for cash because it is still heavily dependent on oil to bring in revenue. Oil prices have dropped by fifty percent since June of 2014, and that is hurting its budget deficit, the amount by which expenditures exceeded revenue.
The country reported in December of 2015 that its 2015 budget deficit hit a hundred billion dollars. Oil revenues make up three-quarters of the country's total revenue. Oil revenue is down by a quarter from the previous year.
The HSBC analysts said that, for the month of February 2016, the country's foreign-exchange holdings dropped by more than nine billion dollars, falling to their lowest level in nearly four years, and are continuing their slide.
The amount of reserve assets held by the Saudi government stood at just under six hundred billion dollars, more than a hundred and fifty billion dollars down from its recent peak in late 2014. As a result, for the second time in four months, the ratings agency S&P downgraded Saudi Arabia's debt rating, which makes it more expensive for Saudi Arabia to borrow money. Saudi Arabia is now trying to curtail the kingdom's "addiction" to oil by implementing a plan to diversify the economy, called Vision 2030.
Rico says that, if we can make all our cars electric in the next decade or so, the Saudis are fucked...
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