Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Saudi Aramco has hired four banks as advisers to its first bond sale, possibly by June 2017, ahead of a planned initial public offering (IPO) in 2018, in order to raise as much as $10b in bonds in 2017, Oil Price reported.

The company selected HSBC Holdings Plc’s local unit and Riyadh Capital to help with the sale of riyal-denominated Islamic bonds, or sukuk, before the end of June, according to Bloomberg. NCB Capital Co. and Alinma Investment Co. are also working on the deal that could be followed by dollar-denominated bonds.

In related news, apart from setting up talks with possible advisers for a bond issue, Saudi Aramco recently made the headlines with reports that an external audit of its oil reserves had confirmed that the Saudi oil giant holds more than 261b barrels of reserves.