Aramco Assigns $80 Billion for Five-Year Expansion Plan
- Pipeline
- Saudi Aramco News
- Industry News
Author: Aramco ExPats
Released 13 November 2006
Saudi Aramco is pursuing an ambitious $80 billion investment program to boost its oil production capacity to 12 million barrels per day, expand gas processing facilities and increase refining capacity at home and abroad. Aramco's senior vice president for industrial relations, Khaled al-Falih, said the five-year scheme is "unprecedented" in the kingdom's history and will help expand the Saudi economy as a whole.
The goal of Aramco's spending program is to build up sustainable oil production capacity by bringing on onshore fields such as Khurais and Khursaniyah, which will provide extra volumes of Arab Light for Aramco's global customers. At the same time, Aramco is pushing ahead with plans to increase production of heavy crude from the Manifa field, which is due to produce an extra 900,000 b/d of Arab Heavy by 2011.
Aramco is expanding the Hawiyah gas plant to process more volumes of non-associated gas and is also looking to build a plant that would handle gas from the north.
Downstream, plans are under way to build two 400,000 b/d export refineries -- one on the Red Sea coast and the other on the Gulf. In parallel, Aramco is pursuing integrated refining and petrochemical projects such as the $10 billion development at Rabigh.
Al-Falih said that, despite a recent increase in capital costs, these expansion projects are still "very economic," especially as the overall oil production costs in the kingdom is well under $2 per barrel.