Wednesday 5 September 2012

Quick Fact File


Timeline - Very Useful


  • 1932 Oil is discovered in Bahrain. Socal begins a year-long series of negotiations with the Saudi government.
  • 1933 Saudi Arabia grants oil concession to California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), affiliate of Standard Oil of California (Socal, today'sChevron). Oil prospecting begins on Kingdom's east coast.
  • 1936 Texas Oil Company (which became Texaco, and now Chevron) acquires 50% interest in Socal's concession. The joint venture became known as the California Texas Oil Company, or Caltex.
  • 1938 Kingdom's first commercial oil field discovered at Dhahran. Crude is exported by barge to Bahrain.
  • 1939 First tanker load of petroleum is exported. (Socal’s D.G. Scofield)
  • 1944 Casoc changes its name to Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco).
  • 1945 Ras Tanura Refinery begins operations (eventually becomes the largest oil-refinery in the world).
  • 1948 Standard Oil of New Jersey (which became Exxon and now ExxonMobil) and Socony-Vacuum Oil (which became Mobil and now ExxonMobil) join Socal (now Chevron) and Texaco (now Chevron) as owners of Aramco.
  • 1950 1,700 km Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (Tapline) is completed, linking Eastern Province oil fields to Lebanon and the Mediterranean.
  • 1950 The US government bestows upon the US member companies a tax break equivalent to 50% of oil profits, a deal known as the Golden gimmick.
  • 1956 Aramco confirms scale of Ghawar and Safaniya, the largest onshore and the largest offshore field in the world, respectively.
  • 1961 Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) - propane and butane — is first processed at Ras Tanura and shipped to customers.
  • 1966 Tankers begin calling at "Sea Island", new offshore crude oil loading platform off Ras Tanura.
  • 1973 Saudi Government acquires 25 percent interest in Aramco.
  • 1975 Master Gas System project is launched.
  • 1980 Saudi Government acquires 100 percent participation interest in Aramco, purchasing almost all of the company's assets.
  • 1981 East-West Pipelines, built for Aramco natural gas liquids and crude oil, link Eastern Province fields with Yanbu on the Red Sea.
  • 1982 King Fahd visits Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, on Aramco's 50th Anniversary to inaugurate the Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center (EXPEC), a milestone in the Saudization of the company's operations.
  • 1984 Company acquires its first four supertankers.
  • 1987 East-West Crude Oil Pipeline expansion project is completed, boosting capacity to 3.2 million barrels (510,000 m3) per day.
  • 1988 Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or Saudi Aramco, is established.
  • 1988 Oil supply to Israel is officially ceased by order of the President and CEO.
  • 1989 High-quality oil and gas are discovered south of Riyadh — the first find outside original operating area.
  • 1991 Company plays major role combating Gulf War oil spill, the world's largest.
  • 1992 East-West Crude Oil Pipeline capacity is boosted to 5 million barrels (790,000 m3) per day. Saudi Aramco affiliate purchases 35% interest in SsangYong Oil Refining Company (S-Oil) in the Republic of Korea.
  • 1993 Saudi Aramco takes charge of Kingdom's domestic refining, marketing, distribution and joint-venture refining interests by buying Jeddah-based Saudi Arabian Marketing and Refining Company (SAMAREC). The company also assumed the Saudi Arabian government's 50% share of the Jubail export refining company, which becomes the Saudi Aramco Shell Refining Company (SASREF).
  • 1994 Maximum sustained crude-oil production capacity is returned to 10 million barrels (1,600,000 m3) per day. Company acquires a 40% equity interest in Petron, largest refiner in the Philippines.
  • 1995 Company completes a program to build 15 very large crude carriers. Saudi Aramco President and CEO Ali I. Al-Naimi is named the Kingdom's Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, and Chairman of Saudi Aramco. Abdullah S. Jum'ah is named the CEO, President, and Director of Saudi Aramco.
  • 1996 Saudi Aramco acquires 50 percent of Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries and Avinoil from the Vardinoyannis family. Company also assumes controlling interest in two Jeddah-based lubricants companies, now known as Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Company (Luberef) and Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company (Petrolube).
  • 1998 Saudi Aramco, Texaco and Shell establish Motiva Enterprises LLC, a major refining and marketing joint venture in the southern and eastern United States.
  • 1999 HRH Crown Prince 'Abd Allah inaugurates the Shaybah field in the Rub' al-Khali desert, one of the largest projects of its kind in the world goes on stream. The Dhahran-Riyadh-Qasim multi-product pipeline and the Ras Tanura Upgrade project are completed. The second Saudi Aramco-Mobil lubricating oil refinery (Luberef II) in Yanbu' commences operations.
  • 2000 Petroleum Intelligence Weekly ranks the company the first in the world for the 11th straight year, for the country's crude oil reserves and production. Aramco Gulf Operations Limited is established to administer the government's petroleum interest in the Offshore Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. New facilities are under construction in the Haradh and Hawiyah gas plant projects to process gas for delivery to the Master Gas System and to domestic markets.
  • 2001 Hawiyah Gas Plant, capable of processing up to 1.6 billion scf per day of non-associated gas, comes on stream.
  • 2003 Haradh Gas Plant completed two and a half months ahead of schedule.
  • 2004 HRH Crown Prince 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abd Al-'Aziz Al Saud, First Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the National Guard, inaugurates the 800,000-barrel-per-day (130,000 m3/d) Qatif-Abu Sa'fah Producing Plants mega project. In addition to the crude, the plants provide 370 million scf of associated gas daily.
  • 2005 Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. sign a joint venture agreement for the development of a large, integrated refining and petrochemical complex in the Red Sea town of Rabigh, on Saudi Arabia's west coast. This becomes known as Petro Rabigh.
  • 2006 Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical break ground on Media:PETRORabigh, an integrated refining/petrochemical project. Haradh III completed, yielding 300,000 bbl/d (48,000 m3/d) of oil. Accords signed for two export refineries—Jubail (with Total) and in Yanbu' (with Conoco-Phillips).
  • 2007 Saudi Aramco subsidiary Saudi Aramco Sino Co. Ltd. signs agreements with ExxonMobil, Sinopec Corp and the Fujian Provincial Government of China to form two joint ventures: Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Co. Ltd., a refining and petrochemicals venture, and Sinopec SenMei (Fujian) Petroleum Co. Ltd. (SSPC), a marketing venture.
  • 2008 Saudi Aramco celebrates the 75th anniversary of the May 29, 1933, signing of the oil concession between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Standard Oil of California (Socal). King Abdullah visits Dhahran to celebrate the 75th anniversary.
  • 2009 CEO inaugurates KAUST, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, where many high profile guest, state leaders, kings, and scholars attended the ceremony.
  • 2009 Saudi Aramco reaches 12 Mbbl/d (1,900,000 m3/d) capacity after completing an expansion program. Also, Petro Rabigh, the company's first petrochemical plant (a partnership with Sumitomo Chemicals Co., Ltd., begins production.
  • 2010 Saudi Aramco unveils GigaPOWERS™ and runs a first field test of Resbots™.
  • 2011 Saudi Aramco starts production from Karan Gas Field, with an output of more than 400 million scf per day.
  • 2011 Saudi Aramco is officially named the world's largest and most valuable privately owned company. Saudi Aramco is said to be monopolizing the world's energy market.
  • 2011 Aramco raised selling prices for all crude grades for customers in Asia and Northwest Europe for April shipments and cut prices for customers in the U.S.
  • 2012 Aramco was ranked by Forbes as the first among the World's largest oil companies.
  •  



History (continued)

In 1973, following US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, the Saudi Arabian government acquired a 25% stake in Aramco. It increased its shareholding to 60% by 1974, and finally took full control of Aramco by 1980, by acquiring a 100% percent stake in the company. Aramco partners continued to operate and manage Saudi Arabia's oil fields. In November 1988, a royal decree changed its name from Arabian American Oil Company to Saudi Arabian Oil Company (or Saudi Aramco)[16] and took the management and operations control of Saudi Arabia's oil and gas fields from Aramco and its partners. It officially cut all oil supply to Israel the same year, by order of the CEO. Following the events that unfolded in 1988, Saudi Aramco has become a fully owned, privately held company. Today Saudi Aramco is the world's largest, richest and most valuable company of all time; concerns for monopolization of the world's economy have been raised.

Friday 20 July 2012

History - Growth of Aramco

After four years of exploration, the first success came with the seventh drill site in Dammam,in 1938, a well referred to as Dammam No. 7
With sweet success Saudi Aramco was producing around 1500 barrels per day which gave the company confidence to continue exploration and growing their company.
The company name was changed in 1944 from California-Arabian Standard Oil Company to Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco).
 In 1950, King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud threatened to nationalize his country's oil facilities, thus pressuring Aramco to agree to share profits 50/50 to make it more beneficial to Saudi Arabia.  In the wake of the new arrangement, the company's headquarters were moved from New York to Dhahran.

History - Early Formation of Aramco

The company was founded on 29th May 1933.
The Saudi government gave concession to Standard Oil of California (Socal) to compete with a rival bid from the Iraq Petroleum Company - The concession allowed Socal to explore for oil in Saudi Arabia.
However In 1936, Socal had no success at locating oil, therefore the Texas Oil Company (Texaco) purchased a 50% stake of the concession to explore and exploit oil in Saudi Arabia. 

Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco is the official Petroleum and Gas Petrochemical Company of Saudi Arabia