Journalists Take Tours to See the Future of Oil
- Pipeline
- Saudi Aramco News
- Dhahran Media
Login to leave ratings
Author: Saudi Aramco News
Released 26 November 2007
DHAHRAN, November 21, 2007 -- Saudi Aramco manages nearly a quarter of the world’s oil reserves, and while in the Kingdom for the third OPEC Summit, journalists and oil-industry analysts came to see how it is done.
The guests were given two tours, the first of the company’s headquarters in Dhahran and the second of PetroRabigh, its Western Province joint venture company with Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Co.
Reporters take notes during their visit to OSPAS as part of tours to Saudi Aramco and PetroRabigh facilities.
The first tour began at the Research and Development Center, where the guests watched scientists and engineers analyze rocks to determine the potential for new wells and explore methods to improve operations and increase efficiency.
Then the group visited the Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center (EXPEC), where most of the company’s well-site problems are solved, and the global operations’ control room, Oil Supply Planning and Scheduling (OSPAS). They were given the opportunity to see up- and down-stream operations, distribution and shipment tracking in real-time.
The first tour ended at the Saudi Aramco Exhibit, complete with a run-through of Saudi Aramco’s exploration, drilling and production, refining and shipping history from 1933 until today.
The second tour took visitors to Rabigh, the Western Province’s new industrial city, to visit the nearly completed PetroRabigh, one of the world’s largest integrated refining and petrochemical facilities.
“To be given a tour of the facility while it is nearing completion is quite a unique insight,” said one of the visitors, “it’s really fascinating to see how the joint-venture model brought this project to fruition.”
The project started in August 2005 and is expected to produce 18.4 million tons of high-value petroleum products and 2.4 million tons of ethylene- and propylene-based petrochemical derivatives per year.
PetroRabigh is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008 and will establish Rabigh as a key industrial center in the Middle East.
The visitors concluded their visit with a tour of the Shaybah Oil Production Facility in the Rub‘ al-Khali.