By Rania El Gamal, Davide Barbuscia and Alex Lawler
DUBAI/LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco's board isset to meet this week in Saudi Arabia where it will approve abond issuance plan that could help finance the potentialacquisition of a stake in Saudi petrochemicals maker SABIC, industry sources said.
Aramco, the world's top oil producer, plans to issue itsfirst international bonds in the second quarter of 2019 and theissuance will probably be around $10 billion, Saudi EnergyMinister Khalid al-Falih has said.
The company's representatives are expected to meetfixed-income investors in a bond roadshow in April, two sourcesfamiliar with the matter said.
The deal is expected to involve the purchase of all, ornearly all, of the 70 percent stake in SABIC held by the PublicInvestment Fund, the kingdom's top sovereign wealth fund. Thatimplies a deal value of roughly $70 billion, though theacquisition price has not been made public yet.
The Aramco board of director will also approve the 2018financial results for the company, which is likely to beincluded in the bond prospectus along with the firm's oil andgas reserves.
"The board will approve the bonds. SABIC (deal) isprogressing but any project of this size takes a long time,"said one of the sources.
Aramco declined to comment.
Senior Aramco officials have travelled to the United Statesand Britain in recent weeks to gauge investor appetite for theplanned bond, the sources said.
Aramco had already picked a group of banks including GoldmanSachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, HSBC and Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bankto help arrange the planned bonds.
When Aramco approached banks formally for the bonds saleearlier this year, it asked them to submit proposals for thebonds and potential commitments for bank debt financing, bankingsources said.
The sources said the acquisition payment is likely to bestaggered, allowing Aramco to tap debt investors in variousphases - a move which would avoid straining banks that are notready to commit large sums through a single loan facility.
Banks have pitched hard over the past months for thishigh-profile bond mandate, hoping to be rewarded by Aramco withfuture mandates for capital markets transactions and otherbanking business.
JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, along with other banks, wereworking on the planned stock market listing of Aramco before themove was put on hold due to the SABIC acquisition. The newplanned listing date is 2021, Saudi officials said.
An international bond sale by Aramco will almost certainlyrequire the company to obtain a credit rating and disclosefinancial information in a prospectus.
Aramco has already started talking to rating agencies, andalthough the state oil giant aims to match the ratings of BigOil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Shell,bond market investors expect Aramco to not have a higher ratingthan Saudi Arabia.(Reporting by Rania El Gamal and Davide Barbuscia in Dubai,Dmitry Zhdannikov, Alex Lawler, Tom Arnold in London; Editing bySam Holmes and Louise Heavens)
