The majority of Saudi Aramco’s profits in the first six months of 2017 came from its upstream ventures, with the company’s downstream profits remaining far behind those of its major rivals, Bloomberg reported.

Aramco earned $842 million from the downstream sector in the first half of 2017. Shell made $5 billion from refining and chemicals in the first half of 2017 and Exxon $4.7 billion in comparison. However, Aramco’s smaller downstream earnings are an improvement on the net loss of $484 million seen in the first six months of 2016.

The company’s total earnings for Q1 and Q2 2017 stand at .

8 billion, up from $7.2 billion over the same period in 2016.

Aramco’s financial performance has long been kept secret but as it prepares for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2018 or 2019 it will have to release information to investors regarding what it earns and how it operates.

Aramco pumps about 10 mb/d of crude oil and plans to raise its refining capacity to between 8 million to 10 mb/d from around 5 mb/d now.