Why now? That’s the question surrounding Saudi Arabia’s planned listing of a portion of its massive national oil company.

In a Monday note, analysts at Bernstein Research offered up a range of potentially overlapping rationales, including a particularly bearish scenario that would mark a Saudi-led race to the bottom as producers attempt to grab market share amid the realization that global oil demand will peak long before supply runs out.

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in April outlined a plan to list up to 5% of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company, widely known as Saudi Aramco, in a move that he estimated would value the massive enterprise at between $2 trillion and $3 trillion—meaning the listing would raise $100 billion to $150 billion for Saudi coffers.

Occam’s razor

The analysts—Neil Beveridge, Oswald Clint and Tracy Pun—start off with an Occam’s razor approach, arguing the simplest explanation is likely the best. With Saudi Arabia running a significant budget deficit, listing Aramco is one way to help plug the hole.

It could also be intended to set the tone, they said, as the country prepares to privatize other state-owned enterprises as part of its so-called Vision 2030 program of economic reforms being spearheaded by the 30-year-old Prince Mohammed. The program is billed as a plan to wean Saudi Arabia’s economy off oil-dependence.

Read:Meet the 30-year-old prince leading the charge to wean Saudis off oil

‘Thatcher moment’

“More broadly the listing of Aramco could be an example to other state owned firms, as Saudi reaches its ‘Thatcher’ moment in seeking to privatize state owned companies to increase efficiency as part of their plan to move beyond oil,” they wrote. The “Thatcher moment” is a reference to the wave of privatizations of government-run enterprises by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after she swept to power in 1979.

“The problem for oil markets is that privatized state companies tend to grow more quickly following privatization,” the analysts said.

Race to the bottom?

But there’s a third potential rationale—and this is the one that could cause oil company executives to lie awake at night, though in the near term it could help provide a floor for crude CLN26, UK:LCOQ6 :

Perhaps Aramco’s growth will be focused on refining and natural gas, but it is possible that Saudi have also realized that demand is likely to run out before supply and it makes more sense to deplete their own reserves ahead of others. While this is pure conjecture at this point, it could have bearish implications for oil markets. In the near term however, Saudi will not want to list Aramco at a low oil price. In the run up to 2018, we expect that Saudi will do everything in its power to ensure oil markets remain balanced and prices stable. This could be positive near term for oil equities.

That last scenario does seem to be in keeping with the basis of the whole 2030 Vision theme of a world that’s much less reliant on oil, they note. While global oil demand probably won’t peak for another 15 or 20 years, it does now look like “we will run out of demand before we run out of supply,” Bernstein says (see chart below).

That could mean a lot of oil is ultimately left in the ground forever. What happens if other producers come to a similar conclusion?

“There is also the question of what happens to countries like Venezuela, Libya, Iraq and Iran which all have more than 100 years of reserves at current production rates and are arguably in a worse position than Saudi Arabia,” they write. “If they sense that the risk of [stranding] is high, could there end up being a race to produce? This would clearly be highly deflationary for oil markets.”

For Saudi Arabia, one response to the peak in oil demand is to shift strategy from “price to market share” to maximize the future recovery of reserves, they said. That could trigger something of a race to the bottom if other producers come to a similar conclusion, they said, though low oil prices themselves might be a limiting factor.