Oil Accounts for 99 Percent of Saudi Arabia’s 8.1 Percent Industrial Output Fall
Saudi Arabia’s industrial production index stood at 101.5 in July, down 8.1 percent from a year earlier and up 10.4 percent from June, the General Authority for Statistics said.
The two figures describe the same index and neither is seasonally adjusted. The authority applies no seasonal adjustment to this series at all, so the annual and monthly readings are the same raw numbers measured against different starting points.
Oil moves, everything else does not
| Industrial production, July 2026 | Index level | Annual change |
|---|---|---|
| General index | 101.5 | -8.1% |
| Non-oil activities | 130.1 | -0.3% |
| Oil activities | 92.0 | -11.4% |
Levels are on a 2021 base of 100, as published. The general index is the weighted average of the two components, oil at 74.98 percent and non-oil at 25.02 percent.
The index fell 8.98 points over the year on our calculation. Oil activities account for 8.89 of those points and non-oil for 0.09, so oil supplied 99.0 percent of the decline, also on our calculation.
The monthly rise decomposes the same way and in the opposite direction. Of the 9.59 points the index gained on June, oil contributed 9.66 and non-oil subtracted 0.07, on our calculation. So oil accounts for 99.0 percent of the annual fall and for more than the whole of the monthly rebound, with non-oil subtracting a small amount in both comparisons.
At all three of those readings the non-oil index sits within a third of a point of itself: 130.4 in July 2025, 130.4 in June 2026 and 130.1 now. Over the same three readings oil ran 103.8, then 79.1, then 92.0. Non-oil activities stand 30.1 points above their 2021 base of 100 and oil activities 8.0 points below it.
The three readings are not the whole series. The release publishes monthly figures back to 2021, and over the past 13 months non-oil has ranged from 124.5 in April to 134.2 last September, a span of 9.7 points on our calculation. It has moved; it has arrived back where it was.
Inside manufacturing, refining is the swing
| Manufacturing detail, July 2026 | Annual change | Monthly change |
|---|---|---|
| Coke and refined petroleum products | -13.6% | 6.5% |
| Chemicals and chemical products | -4.0% | -2.2% |
| Manufacturing, total | -5.8% | 1.3% |
As published. Refined petroleum carries a weight of 13.53 in the index and chemicals 8.15.
The authority names both lines itself, saying manufacturing fell 5.8 percent over the year affected by the decline in coke and refined petroleum products and in chemicals, and rose 1.3 percent on the month supported by the rise in coke and refined petroleum products.
Mining and quarrying, which in this index is effectively crude oil and gas extraction, fell 10.9 percent over the year and rose 19.0 percent on the month. The two utility sections went the other way: electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply rose 4.5 percent over the year and water supply and waste management rose 7.8 percent, the only two sections higher than a year ago.
One number in this release is not the number that was published a month ago
June’s index level now reads 91.9134. When June was first published on 10 August it read 92.2601, so it has been revised down by 0.35 points on our calculation.
The authority marks the data preliminary and states that the latest three months are updated as corrections arrive. July’s figure is therefore provisional on the same terms, and the 10.4 percent monthly rise is measured against a June that has already moved.
Why it matters: An 8.1 percent annual fall in industrial output would ordinarily describe a broad contraction. This one is almost entirely one sector: oil accounts for 99.0 percent of it on our calculation. For a reader watching the diversification programme, that is the more useful reading of the release. Across the three readings this release puts side by side, oil ran 103.8, 79.1 and 92.0 while non-oil ran 130.4, 130.4 and 130.1, so both the annual fall and the monthly rebound in the national total are oil arithmetic.
Outlook: The August index publishes on 11 October. The question is whether the July jump in oil activities holds, since a 16.3 percent monthly rise in an unadjusted series with no seasonal smoothing is not a trend on its own. The non-oil line is the one to watch for a genuine change of direction, and the useful test is not its annual change but whether it breaks out of the 124.5 to 134.2 band it has held for 13 months. Both months are provisional and the last three are open to revision.
Sources: General Authority for Statistics of Saudi Arabia.
