ESG loophole drives billions into oil giants

Green benefit: An Aramco booth at an exhibition hall during an energy summit. Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate that SPVs need to issue an additional US$15bil (RM70bil) of debt in order to continue financing the Aramco pipeline deals. — Bloomberg

NEW YORK: Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, has become an unlikely beneficiary of funds earmarked for sustainable investments thanks to a complex web of financial structures it used to raise money from its pipelines.

Aramco doesn’t appear to have set out to tap cash originally intended for environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals when it started a process to raise US$28bil (RM130.27bil) in 2021. But the fact that ESG investors ended up playing a role in the capital raise of a fossil-fuel behemoth raises questions about a playbook that’s increasingly being used in the Gulf.