THIS MORNING: Aramco leans on the spot market

Good morning, ladies and gents, and happy THURSDAY. We say goodbye to the week with a brisk issue, led by UAE-based BlueFive formalizing its tie-up with Al Murjan, the latest banking data from Sama, and a Mauritania contract for Acwa to build a gas-fired plant.

BUT FIRST- Aramco has made a rare move to the spot market, selling at least 6 mn bbl across three supertankers bound for South Korea, Japan, and China as it works to restore war-stifled flows, unnamed traders told Bloomberg. The world’s largest oil exporter normally sells only on long-term contracts; spot selling is typically the preserve of smaller producers. The cargoes are priced against the Dubai and Oman benchmarks.

Not the first time: Aramco last sold on the spot market in March, offloading some 4.6 mn bbl of Arab Light and Extra Light crude from Yanbu and Ain Sokhna to clear bottlenecked inventories during peak Hormuz disruptions.

The rebound is broader than just Aramco. Gulf crude exports have recovered to at least 75% of pre-conflict levels, aided by a resumption of loadings at Ras Tanura, Aramco’s main Gulf export terminal. Saudi Gulf loadings climbed to 4.45 mn bbl / d in June — the highest since the war broke out in late February, though still well below pre-war volumes. Brent has slumped to USD 72 / bbl on the supply rebound.

The rest of the region is moving too. Adnoc has been among the most active spot sellers, offloading tens of mns of barrels via tenders, and this week proposing to index its official prices to the Dubai benchmark. Iraq managed to export oil stranded in the Gulf but is struggling to source enough tankers.

ALSO- Aramco slashed its liquified petroleum gas prices (LPG) by 24-27% for July — propane down USD 180 per ton to USD 580, and butane down USD 220 per ton to USD 600 — as higher global supply weighs on the market, Reuters reports. Aramco’s monthly LPG prices are widely used as a benchmark for Middle East LPG exports to the Asia-Pacific market.

REMEMBER- This month’s slash follows a hike in June after Aramco halted its shipments from the Juaymah export facility in the previous month. The facility, which suffered structural damage sustained in late February, accounts for about 3.5% of global seaborne LPG exports.

Webuild isn’t leaving Saudi, just Neom

Webuild is pivoting its Saudi strategy away from a scaled-back Neom toward transport and water infrastructure. The Italian contractor is bidding on the Line 7 metro expansion to Diriyah and pursuing “everything that relates to water,” including desalination plants, aqueducts, and water treatment projects, CEO Pietro Salini told AGBI. WeBuild is already working on Line 2 of the Riyadh Metro and Diriyah Square.

Reimbursed and moving on: Webuild’s USD 4.7 bn contract to build three dams and a freshwater lake with Al Bawani for the Trojena project was terminated as part of the Kingdom’s gigaproject scale-back, leaving the USD 19 bn development only 30% complete. Webuild has since been fully reimbursed.

The broader picture: Neom’s restructuring could cost up to USD 16 bn to cover cancelled contracts. The pullback is part of PIF’s wider pivot toward trimming capital expenditure, attracting foreign co-investment, and focusing on projects that will deliver quicker returns.

Getting tense with Washington?

The US-Saudi security partnership might be on thin ice: Washington is currently considering reducing its military footprint in Saudi Arabia and shifting forces toward countries that were more supportive during the conflict, unnamed US officials told the Wall Street Journal.

Why? A US plan to run naval escorts through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed within 48 hours in May after Saudi Arabia refused to let American forces use its airspace, claims a New York Times investigation into the US-Saudi relationship since the Iran war began in February. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly held firm through three days of calls from President Trump, JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and Marco Rubio, forcing the Pentagon to shut down the mission it had branded Project Freedom.

Why it matters: The episode is the clearest evidence yet that the Crown Prince's calculus on Iran has shifted mid-war to actively blocking an operation he feared would reignite the conflict. The White House reportedly later threatened to withhold deliveries of interceptors needed by Saudi Arabia to defend against Iranian missiles and drones unless the Kingdom reversed course, unnamed sources told the WSJ. Riyadh eventually lifted the restrictions, but US officials said the dispute caused lasting damage.

The tensions spilled into diplomacy, too? Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently visited the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain, but didn’t travel to Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials interpreted the decision as a calculated snub, according to the sources, but the White House rejected that interpretation, citing fruitful conversations between Rubio and Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting.

What's next: Watch whether the Trump administration brings its Saudi nuclear cooperation plan to Congress in the coming weeks, with Israeli officials and a few US lawmakers flagging weapons-proliferation concerns. Also worth watching is what comes out of Bin Farhan's two-day China visit which wrapped up yesterday, and whether Riyadh commits any funds toward Iran's reconstruction, which the US-Iran ceasefire framework calls.

Goodbye, WTA

The WTA Finals is leaving Riyadh early. The women tennis tour confirmed Wednesday that the season-ending championship shifts to California’s Indian Wells for November, ending a three-year hosting deal with the Saudi Tennis Federation after just two editions.

Both sides are calling it a mutual pivot, but unnamed sources told The Athletic the event had already stopped earning its keep in Riyadh's wider sports strategy months before the WTA cited security concerns tied to the Israel-Iran war as the reason it wouldn't return this year.

The money was real while it lasted: The Saudi-backed prize pool hit USD 15.25 mn in year one, a 66% jump on 2023. Elena Rybakina picked up a record USD 5.3 mn winner's check in 2025, the biggest check in women's sports history.

What Saudi keeps: the PIF's sponsorship of the WTA rankings and its maternity/egg-freezing benefit for players continues regardless of where the Finals are played.

Data point

SAR 20 bn — that’s the value of foreign investment inflows into Saudi Arabia’s private markets in 2025, accounting for some 60% of total private investment in the Kingdom, according to a Saudi Venture Capital Company report (pdf). The number of foreign investors increased more than fivefold from 28 investors to 148 last year.

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The big story abroad

Global dealmaking is running at its fastest pace in years: Goldman Sachs data show global M&A reached USD 2.8 tn in 1Q 2026, up 49% y-o-y, fueled by the rise of AI and US President Donald Trump's administration’s easing of antitrust guardrails. US transaction value jumped 77%, barely dented by the war, while Europe's transaction volumes fell 14.2%, which dealmakers attribute largely to the war's fallout.

Gulf entities are riding that wave too: Transaction value involving Gulf entities nearly tripled in 1H 2026 to about USD 300 bn, pushing Wall Street firms to bolster their regional teams, Bloomberg reports.

Speaking of AI: Washington lifted the export controls it slapped on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 just three weeks ago over security concerns — though the fight over how to regulate frontier AI is only getting started, the Wall Street Journal writes.

On the war front, two days of talks in Doha ended with no real progress — negotiators spent the session re-litigating issues both sides had already claimed to resolve in the interim agreement two weeks ago, chiefly Hormuz shipping and Iran's frozen funds. The next round waits until after Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral on 9 July. Iran still says it'll start tolling ships through Hormuz from mid-August, and oil hit a four-month low.