Pushing ahead: with work at Khurais
Aramco on track for output boost
Saudi Aramco expects to boost its output capacity to 12 million barrels per day of crude oil by the end of next year despite slowing global demand for oil, a senior company official said.
"We are backing our bullish outlook on petroleum with substantial investments designed to meet future global demand for crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemicals," Khalid Al-Buainain, Aramco's senior vice president of international refining and marketing, told an energy symposium.
He added that Saudi Arabia will soon bring the Khurais project on stream. Khurais alone accounts for 1.2 million bpd of production capacity.
"By the end of next year, we will have reached our target of 12 million bpd...sustained crude oil production capacity including significant spare capacity that can be used whenever it's needed," Reuters quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, Waleed Al-Mulhim, from the company's reservoir management department, said the Shaybah and Nuayyim oilfields will start up in the first half of next year.
The oilfields had earlier been scheduled for start up at the end of this year.
"Well, maybe sometime in the first half of 2009," he told Reuters when asked about the date of the project completion.
He declined to comment on the reason for the shift in the timeline.