Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud inaugurated last week a number of oil giant projects of Saudi Aramco and the King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture in Dhahran.
The oil projects were worth around $42.66bn (160bn Saudi riyals) with a total production capacity of about 3mn barrels, according to Saudi Press Agency.
One of the inaugurated projects included Sadara Chemical Company, a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Saudi Aramco which is part of the growth and economic diversification strategy of the Saudi Vision 2030 plan.
The $800mn cultural centre in Dhahran underlines the wide range of commitments the world’s biggest oil company has made as the kingdom tries to transform its economy. The centre, known as “Ithra” (“to enrich” in Arabic) is located close to Saudi’s “prosperity well” that tapped some of the country’s first commercial quantities oil in 1938. It will boast a vast library, museum and multimedia theatre.
At the ceremony, Aramco’s CEO Amin Nasser said the centre aimed to fulfil Saudi’s Vision 2030 economic plan “with new knowledge frontiers”.
King Salman was also briefed on the Planning and Regulating Oil Supply Centre and watched a visual presentation on the history of Saudi Aramco.
Al Nasser said the Planning and Regulating Oil Supply Centre is an evolving centre through which the new mega-projects were being inaugurated.
“This centre for coordinating operations is the main control centre of the Company’s operations and it has no parallel in the world. The centre controls the production of 15mn barrels equivalent of oil crude and gas through an integrated network of facilities on the land and the sea and in all regions of the Kingdom,” he added.
