By Yousef Saba and Federico Maccioni

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi oil giant Aramco reported on a 4.6% drop in the first quarter on Sunday, due to the withdrawal of its sales and the increase in operating costs, while the oil market faces economic uncertainty.

The world’s leading world exporter of oil, Aramco has published a net profit of 97.54 billion riyals (26.01 billion dollars or 23.11 billion euros) over three months at the end of March. This figure is greater than the median forecast provided by the company which rested on 16 analysts table tabbling on 25.36 billion dollars.

The action, which accuses a decrease of 10.9% since the start of the year, took 0.64% around 8:40 GMT.

Aramco confirmed the payment of an overall dividend of $ 21.36 billion for the first quarter, including $ 219 million linked to performance, a mechanism put in place following the Invasion in 2022 of Ukraine by Russia, which had caused an outbreak of oil prices.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has been counting on the generous distributions of Aramco, in particular royalties and taxes, to derive economic growth from the kingdom. The oil represented last year 62% of public revenue from Saudi Arabia and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that a barrel of oil at 92.3 dollars is necessary this year to balance the kingdom’s budget.

Aramco’s results were published upstream of the visit of the American president, Donald Trump, in the kingdom on Tuesday. The trade war, decided by the tenant of the White House, against China caused tremors to the financial markets and drops crude prices against the backdrop of fears of a global economic slowdown.

“The global commercial dynamics affected energy markets in the first quarter of 2025, the economic uncertainty having an impact on oil prices,” said Aramco director, Amin Nasser, quoted in a press release.

The barrel of Brent, the main reference of oil, is on a largely downward trajectory from the top of $ 82.03 reached in January. He established himself on Friday at a fence at 63.91 dollars per barrel.

Aramco said in March Anticipating the payment of an overall dividend of $ 85.4 billion in 2025, which represents a sharp decline compared to the payment of more than $ 124 billion from last year, which was based on the profits of 2023 and 2024. The payment linked to performance, which amounted last year to 43.1 billion dollars, was Lowered by around 98% due to the reduction in available cash flow.

In recent years, the Kingdom has invested considerable sums in projects aimed at diversifying its economy beyond oil, notably within the framework of the Vision 2030 program.

The Saudi State directly holds around 81.5% of Aramco, while the sovereign fund PIF controls a participation of 16%.

“The brutal fall in the oil price makes the prospects for financing the budgetary deficit and vision 2030 much more difficult,” notes Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, adding that the drop in the benefit of Aramco was already reflected in a larger budgetary deficit in the first quarter.

(Report Yousef Saba and Federico Maccioni; Claude Chendjou)

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