State-giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, is focusing on investing heavily in gas more than increasing its oil production, its chief executive Khalid al-Falih said Monday.
State-giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, is focusing on
investing heavily in gas more than increasing its oil production, its chief
executive Khalid al-Falih said Monday.
The kingdom was previously facing a pressure to increase its oil output, but
that pressure is "substantially reduced," he told a conference in
Riyadh
.
"Our focus is to invest heavily in gas, in downstream, in refining
and--something that is new to Aramco--in chemicals," he said.
Last month, al-Falih told Dow Jones that
Saudi
Arabia
is unlikely to proceed with
plans to raise its oil output capacity to 15 million barrels a day, as
expansion plans in other producing countries such as
Iraq
and
Brazil
should be enough to satisfy world markets.
"There is no reason for Saudi Aramco to pursue 15 million barrels [of
capacity]," he said. "It is difficult to see [an increase in
capacity] because there are too many variables happening...market demand is
addressed by others."
In 2008, when oil prices surged to a record $147 a barrel, Saudi oil minister
Ali al-Naimi said the kingdom was examining plans to raise its production
capacity to 15 million barrels a day in an attempt to reassure markets
concerned about long-term security of supply.
Aramco is currently producing about 9 million barrels of oil a day, having
raised output sharply earlier this year to make up for lost output from
Libya
. Its
current output capacity is 12 million barrels a day, though the kingdom as a
whole could produce 12.5 million barrels a day if output from the so-called
Neutral Zone, shared with
Kuwait
, is
taken into account.
Monday, al-Falih said that Aramco has a number of projects that "we can
either bring in to offset decline...or we can bring in if we are asked to
increase capacity.
"It wouldn't make sense today [to increase capacity]," he said.
Aramco has no plans to consider to increase the output capacity of its Manifa
oil field, which has capacity to produce 900,000 barrels a day, until it has
been in production for a while.
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