Bloomberg: Saudi Aramco Expanding Oil and Gas Projects Even With Low Prices
Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is pressing ahead with an expansion of the Khurais oil field despite lower crude prices and plans to double its production of natural gas over the next 10 years, the company’s chief executive officer said.
The world’s biggest oil exporter, known as Saudi Aramco, won’t cancel any oil, gas or refining projects, Amin Nasser told reporters during a conference in Al-Ahsa in eastern Saudi Arabia. Aramco is also studying a possible expansion of the country’s largest oil refinery, Ras Tanura, which has a capacity of 550,000 barrels a day, he said Wednesday.
“Until now all of our downstream and upstream projects are continuous,” Nasser said. “No project in our programs got canceled.”
Saudi Arabia led a 2014 decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to maintain output, not cut it, in order to defend market share and drive out higher-cost producers. Crude prices have tumbled almost 50 percent since the decision in November that year. Saudi Arabia plans to join a meeting next month of producers from within and outside OPEC in Doha, Qatar, adding its weight to a campaign by financially stricken crude exporters to freeze output and overcome the glut weighing on the market. MORE