Saudi certain new oil mega project will be on time

KHURAIS OILFIELD, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – State oil giant Saudi Aramco is adamant the biggest new field in its plan to raise oil capacity will arrive bang on schedule in June next year.

A chorus of senior executives lined up Monday to tell reporters visiting the Khurais project south of Riyadh the 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) expansion would avoid the delays that have plagued the global energy sector.


They were speaking a day after Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi assured an emergency meeting of consumers and producers the kingdom would pump enough oil to meet demand and pledged to add to existing plans to increase output potential.

“We are 100 percent confident that Khurais will come on stream as planned in June 2009,” said Amin al-Nasser, one of Aramco’s top executives.

He had been asked how he could be so certain the $10 billion project would be on time given that another major boost to capacity from the Khursaniyah oil field has yet to start up after missing a December deadline.

Reuters