The Financial Post reports in its Monday edition that Saudi Arabia surprised the oil market with deeper production cuts, sending crude prices soaring and predicting that Saudi Aramco, fresh from its initial public offering, will soon surge past the elusive $2-trillion valuation (all figures U.S.). A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that after two days of gruelling talks in Vienna that had focused on adjusting the OPEC+ quota and redistributing output cuts more equitably, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman sent prices soaring with the promise to take the kingdom's production down to levels not seen on a sustained basis since 2014. Oil jumped as much as 2.4 per cent in New York, and Prince Abdulaziz predicted that Saudi Aramco's $1.7-trillion IPO valuation would soon soar above the level long coveted by his brother, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. "Aramco will be higher than the $2-trillion, and they can bet that this will happen," Prince Abdulaziz said. The state-controlled company would reach that valuation "in a few months" after its shares start trading on Dec. 11, he said. The Saudi cuts are contingent on other OPEC members also meeting their production promises. (RBC is participating in the Aramco IPO.)