And it is his hope that this IPO will help finance the country's turnaround making it less dependent on oil revenue.

It's been trying to do this for three years and was ready to pull the trigger when the Houthi rebels in North Yemen pulled theirs and damaged major Aramco facilities at Ab Qaiq in August.

The IPO itself is off the table until next year but the Saudis have officially put it back on the table, submitting the necessary paperwork to make the sale.

What's held up this IPO has been MbS's insistence on a $2 trillion valuation while playing very coy about the company's actual assets and reserves. It took a couple of rounds of failed book-runner commitments to finally get the Saudis to offer some glimpse at Aramco's finances.

From Irina Slav at Oilprice.com in March 2019:

Aramco has never published financial reports. Although there were assurances that it will start doing so ahead of the IPO, to date the latest entry on Aramco's Corporate Reports page is from July 20 last year, and includes production figures for 2016. Last year, sources had told Reuters the company was planning to start publishing financial reports early this year, but this has not happened yet.