DHAHRAN — Saudi Aramco reported a 35 percent increase in third-quarter net profit on Tuesday, to $36.3 billion from $26.9 billion in the year-earlier quarter — 135.9 billion riyals against about 101 billion riyals — as higher oil prices driven by the US-Iran war and the sale of its stake in a Malaysian refining venture outweighed attacks on its facilities and the disruption of exports, the Associated Press reported. Adjusted net profit, which leaves out the stake sale, rose 9 percent to $31.2 billion, beating a $28.7 billion analyst consensus compiled by Bloomberg, according to OilPrice.
Source: Associated Press via Manufacturing.net
The headline figure includes a 25.9 billion riyal gain from selling Aramco's 50 percent stake in the PRefChem refining and petrochemicals joint venture to Malaysia's state oil company Petronas, AFP reported. Even without it, the quarter was powered by price: Aramco sold its oil for an average of $95.20 a barrel during the quarter, compared with $70.10 in the year-before quarter, the company said — oil was trading below $70 a barrel before the US launched its first attacks on Iran in February. Refining was the other engine: adjusted earnings in the downstream division more than tripled to $10.3 billion from $3.1 billion a year earlier, a rise of 234 percent, as refinery output cuts worldwide sent product prices and margins to record levels in many markets.
Source: AFP via Daily Guardian Europe
Profit under fire: attacks, a blocked strait and a pipeline lifeline
The results cover a quarter in which Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis targeted Saudi tankers, pipelines, storage facilities and refineries, and in which Iran and the Houthis hampered traffic through both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb — the two chokepoints either side of the Arabian Peninsula. Aramco kept exports moving mainly through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, bypassing Hormuz; the pipeline was attacked on September 10 and closed for almost two weeks before resuming flows, and Saudi oil is now also moving through the strait itself using a US-protected corridor near the coast of Oman, AP reported. Jefferies analysts noted Aramco achieved its highest month of exports since February in September, Dow Jones reported. Supply reliability nonetheless slipped to 97.8 percent from 99.9 percent a year earlier, Finimize reported, and Aramco said that as of September 30 the impact of Houthi attacks was not expected to be material to its finances — while noting the more serious attacks, including last month's strike on its Dhahran headquarters area, came in October, after the quarter ended.
Source: Associated Press via Manufacturing.net
The lifeline behind these numbers: Aramco's expansion of the East-West pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, already under way. Read the East-West pipeline report
President and CEO Amin H. Nasser said in the results statement: “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.” Aramco said it continues to explore options to further diversify supply to its customers.
Source: Dow Jones via TradingView
A windfall for the kingdom — inside a shrinking economy
The $21.9 billion dividend is crucial support for Saudi Arabia's budget, and the profit surge offers the kingdom's finances some relief, Dow Jones reported — but it lands inside an economy the war is hurting: Saudi real GDP shrank 3.8 percent year on year in the third quarter, weighed down by a 20.4 percent decline in oil activities, the General Authority for Statistics said on Sunday. Production told the same story as the GDP figures: Aramco's total hydrocarbon output averaged 11.05 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from 13.27 million a year earlier, though up from the second quarter's 9.46 million. In the second quarter Aramco had reported a 44 percent year-on-year rise in net profit to 122.6 billion riyals, AFP noted — the war premium on price is consistently outweighing the war damage to volume.
Source: Dow Jones via TradingView
Background: why a Saudi oil result is a Hormuz war story
The war that began on February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas moved in peacetime, and drawn down nearly a billion barrels from global inventories. Brent crude — $104.77 a barrel at Monday's close after a 7.6 percent fall on deal hopes, and about $105.61 in Tuesday trade — has stayed above $100 for nearly two weeks. For Punjab and India, which import the great bulk of their crude, every quarter in which the strait's disruption keeps prices near these levels feeds directly into fuel, freight and food prices; and for the lakhs of Punjabi and Indian workers in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf, Aramco's ability to keep exporting through Yanbu and the Oman-coast corridor is what keeps the region's biggest employer's projects — and the jobs and remittances tied to them — running.
Source: Sharecast (Brent price in Tuesday trade)
Aramco's fourth quarter will carry the cost of October's more serious attacks, which fell outside this reporting period. Watch whether the East-West pipeline expansion and the US-protected Oman corridor hold export volumes, whether the Qatar-mediated US-Iran talks ease the Hormuz closure and the war premium in prices, and whether the kingdom's non-oil economy can offset a second straight quarter of oil-sector contraction when full-year figures arrive.