”Saudi Aramco”

Last week, “Saudi Aramco” concluded with its Japanese partner, “Sumitomo Chemical,” financing contracts to initiate the “PETRORabigh” project in Rabigh, one of the world’s largest export-oriented refinery and petrochemical complexes, then opened its “Haradh-3″ Project for oil production. In truth, these two projects form an integral part of a wide scale expansion and development campaign in all respects according to the international petroleum standards. They also reflect three basic fields where Aramco can excel in the upcoming period.

First, the production capacity will be boosted from its current 11-million-barrels-per-day to 12.50 million in 2009. Second, the foreign companies will start drilling in an attempt to find free gas in the Empty Quarter (Rub al Khali). Finally, in cooperation with international companies, the refineries and petrochemicals are likely to undergo a large expansion process in the Kingdom and aboard.

Such expansions take up great importance given the huge investments estimated at tens of billions of dollars and the diversified trends (oil, gas, refineries, petrochemical plants). In the same vein, the Kingdom is committed to expanding its oil productive capacity to meet the globally growing demand for oil and petroleum products and to supply gas for the mounting local consumption, especially in electricity and petrochemicals. Remarkably, the adopted administrative system perpetuates and protects the huge and diverse activities the company, a cornerstone of the global economy, undertakes.

As a matter of fact, “Haradh-3″ Project, inaugurated last week, is expected to supply an additional 300 thousand b/d of Arabian light oil. Indeed, major oil companies constantly explore and develop new fields, with Aramco increasing its output in 2004 by 800 thousand b/d in the two fields of Qatif and Abu Sa’fah. Still, last week’s momentous event heralds an increase in Saudi Arabia’s current productive capacity from 11 million b/d to 12.50 million in 2009. Even more, the “Kharsaniah” field is projected to produce 500 thousand b/d of light oil in 2007, while, following the expansion of the fields in “Shaybah” and the central region, some other 300 thousand b/d will be produced in 2008. Likewise, the light oil output in “Kharis” field is expected to increase by 1.2 million b/d in 2009. On the other hand, there are other projects to extract natural gas fluids in addition to producing more ethanol used as a petrochemical feed.

Dar Al Hayat