As an IPO Looms, Saudi Aramco Prepares for Global Expansion


05/10/2016



As the Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Aramco prepares for a partial privatization pushed by a government intent on diversifying the economy, the giant oil company is also seeking to expand globally via joint ventures overseas.
 
Reuters reported that the chief executive of the company, Amin Nasser told reporters during a rare media visit to the company's Dhahran headquarters that the company is looking at opportunities in the United States, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China.
 
"We are looking at the current market status that, even though challenging, is an excellent opportunity for growth," Nasser said. The chief executive also added that he believed an extra 1.2 million barrels per day would be added to global oil demand this year.
 
As the heart of the plans for a radical overhaul of the Saudi Arabia’s economy and energy sector that has been formulated to meet the challenge of expected lower oil prices that have already caused massive fiscal deficits in Riyadh are the proposed changes to the structure and nature of functioning of Saudi Aramco.
 
Saudi Arabia has asked the company to play a big role in developing industrial projects aimed at diversifying the energy-centred economy and the government of the kingdom expects that the company would sell up to five percent of Aramco via an initial public offering (IPO).
 
"We will meet the call on Saudi Aramco," Nasser said.
The latest stage of its expansion project at the southeastern Shaybah oil field would be finished "in a couple of weeks" and the company produced an average of 10.2 million bpd of crude in 2015, added the chief executive while talking to the media.
 
The increased capacity of 250,000 bpd is aimed at compensating for falling output at other fields as they mature and for rebalancing Saudi Arabia's crude oil quality which will take the Shaybah's total production capacity to 1 million bpd, he said.
 
It is also expected by Saudi Aramco that by the year 2021, a huge ship repair and shipbuilding complex that it is developing at Ras al-Khair on the kingdom's east coast will be fully operational, Nasser said.
 
While eventually the under construction ship repair and shipbuilding complex will eventually make oil rigs and tankers, Nasser said that the first part of the shipbuilding complex, part of Riyadh's plans to boost industrial diversification, will be ready by 2018.
 
While increasing the country's gross domestic product by $17 billion, the ship repair and shipbuilding complex will allow Saudi Arabia to reduce its imports by $12 billion and it will also create 80,000 jobs, a presentation by the company showed.
 
(Source:www.reuters.com)