Saudi Aramco profit jumps 34.5% to $36.3 billion in third quarter despite attacks on its facilities
Saudi Aramco reported a 34.5 per cent rise in third-quarter net profit to $36.25 billion on Tuesday, helped by higher oil prices and a gain from selling its stake in a Malaysian refining venture, even as attacks on energy infrastructure continued during the Middle East war. Figures checked on Tuesday afternoon, 3 November 2026 (Pakistan time).
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter, has reported a sharp jump in third-quarter profit, saying net income rose 34.5 per cent year on year to 135.94 billion Saudi riyals ($36.25 billion) in the three months to the end of September. The result, announced on Tuesday in a statement to the Tadawul stock exchange, came despite what the company described as continued attacks on key energy facilities and severe disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The headline figure was lifted by two forces working together: higher oil prices and a one-off gain. Aramco said the increase was primarily driven by higher revenue and other income, including a gain from the disposal of its equity interest in PRefChem, the Malaysian refining and petrochemicals venture it sold to PETRONAS in September. That sale alone contributed a gain of 25.9 billion riyals. Stripping out such items, adjusted net income rose 9 per cent to 116.9 billion riyals ($31.2 billion), up from $28.6 billion a year earlier and above the median analyst forecast of $30.66 billion compiled from 12 analysts.
Revenue told the same story of a market transformed by war and tight supply. Total revenue for the quarter rose to $140.5 billion, up from $111.6 billion in the third quarter of 2025. Aramco said the increase was predominantly driven by higher prices for crude oil and for refined and chemical products, partly offset by lower volumes sold. Its average realised oil price was about $95.20 a barrel in the quarter, compared with about $70.10 a year earlier, a rise of roughly 35 per cent.
The downstream business, which covers refining and trading, was the standout performer. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes in that division rose 234 per cent year on year to $10.3 billion, supported by much stronger refining margins as disruptions to Middle East supply pushed up the value of refined products. For the first nine months of 2026 as a whole, Aramco reported net income of $101.5 billion and adjusted net income of $98.4 billion.
Shareholders will share directly in the result. Aramco’s board approved a third-quarter base dividend of $21.9 billion, a 3.5 per cent increase year on year, to be paid in the fourth quarter of the year. That payout matters well beyond the company’s investors: Aramco is the cornerstone of Saudi Arabia’s public finances, and its dividend is a major source of government revenue at a time when the kingdom has revised up its projected budget deficit for 2026 to 245 billion riyals, or 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product, from an initial forecast of 165 billion riyals.
The company’s chief executive struck a sober note alongside the strong numbers. “Geopolitical uncertainty and attacks on key energy facilities continued to amplify the global energy supply crisis in the third quarter of 2026, with serious implications for global energy security,” president and chief executive Amin Nasser said in the statement. The Middle East war, which began on 28 February with United States and Israeli strikes on Iran, has repeatedly hit Saudi energy infrastructure, including Houthi attacks on sites in the kingdom, while the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced exporters to find costlier and longer routes.
The context helps explain both the profit and its limits. Compared with a year ago, when oil prices were much lower, the results look very strong, as Robert Mogielnicki, a research fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, noted in comments carried by AFP. Compared with the previous quarter, however, they are less striking: second-quarter net profit was 122.6 billion riyals, up 44 per cent year on year, so the third-quarter headline of 135.9 billion riyals represents a more modest sequential step, and adjusted profit actually fell about 7 per cent from the second quarter. Capital expenditure also eased, to $10.5 billion in the quarter from $12.6 billion a year earlier, while gearing, a measure of indebtedness, improved to 5.5 per cent at the end of September from 6.2 per cent at the end of June.
Markets gave the results a mixed reception on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index slipped 0.2 per cent in choppy early trade, weighed down by a 0.4 per cent fall in Al Rajhi Bank, while Aramco itself eased 0.2 per cent despite the profit jump. Elsewhere in the Gulf, Dubai’s main index rose 0.6 per cent, led by a 1.6 per cent gain in developer Emaar Properties, and Abu Dhabi rose 0.3 per cent, while Qatar’s index fell 1 per cent, with Qatar National Bank down 1.3 per cent. Traders were balancing the earnings news against fresh security fears after reports that the United States had struck Iran’s Qeshm Island, which pushed Brent crude back above $105 a barrel in early trading after it had settled at $104.77 on Monday, down 7.63 per cent on hopes of diplomacy.
For Saudi Arabia, the results underline a paradox of the war economy. Higher prices have more than offset lower volumes and the cost of protecting infrastructure, delivering a windfall to the state oil company even as the conflict damages the wider economy and forces the government to borrow more. That windfall, however, depends on prices staying high, and prices have swung violently in recent days on every hint of escalation or of a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran.
What happens next will therefore turn less on Aramco’s operations than on the war and on oil prices. If the diplomatic contacts now being conducted through Doha and Islamabad produce a durable easing, crude could fall back and trim the exceptional refining margins that powered the third quarter. If fighting escalates again, or Hormuz shipping is disrupted further, prices could spike higher still, boosting Aramco’s revenues while raising costs for importers worldwide, including Pakistan. Either way, the fourth quarter, with its dividend payment and the usual year-end demand season, will test whether the third quarter’s strength was a wartime peak or a new plateau.
Figures checked on Tuesday afternoon, 3 November 2026 (Pakistan time).
This post is market news information only, not financial advice.
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