Khalid al-Falih, CEO of Aramco, affirmed the company’s commitment to expanding its downstream assets, saying Saudi is currently slated to spend $90 billion on downstream development projects.
Al-Falih, addressing the 20th World Petroleum Congress in Doha, Qatar, said Aramco intends to become one of the top-tier petrochemicals companies in the world “within the next decade.”
“Saudi Aramco is going to grow in our downstream and our gas production,”
Aramco is changing to meet burgeoning domestic demand for electricity generation feedstock, the tilt to non-OPEC and unconventional production, and the global enthusiasm for gas.
Upstream development will continue, with Al-Falih confirming that Aramco is “undertaking a massive exploration campaign,” which will include exploration of the Red Sea, shale oil, and spending $17 billion to develop the offshore Manifa field, which is due to reach production capacity of 900,000barrels per day in 2014 under an accelerated timetable.
The Manifa project has involved building artificial islands in the shallow water of the Persian Gulf, in order to realize onshore-drilling recovery and logistical efficiencies. The project is central to providing feedstock for Saudi’s new heavy crude refineries being built in conjunction with Total and Sinopec.
Saudi Aramco also in its annual review said that it will deliver the Karan offshore non-associated gas development onstream nest year, ahead of its 2013 schedule. When fully operational in 2012, the project will produce 1.8 billion cu ft a day of raw gas.
