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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