ABU DHABI — Saudi Arabia's state-owned Aramco plans to diversify its energy resources and
move away from crude oil production.
Executives said the energy company has been embracing
the development of natural gas sources to meet domestic and regional demand.
They said gas production and exports would help cushion the blow of another
major decline in the price of oil.
"Our crude production has been stable and this will allow us to focus on
other energy resources," an executive said.
Executives said Aramco, which achieved its goal of 12.5 million barrels
of crude oil production capacity in 2009, would bolster gas production
capacity from the current 6.2 billion cubic feet per day to nine billion by
2015. In 2008, Aramco began drilling its first offshore gas project at
Karan.
Meanwhile Kuwait plans to shut down a major refinery unit.
The state-owned Kuwait National Petroleum Co. has decided to close a
unit at the Mina Al Ahmadi refinery, the largest in the sheikdom. Officials
said the 120,000-barrel-per-day crude unit would be shut from Oct. 27
through Nov. 16 for maintenance. Mina has a capacity of 460,000 barrels per
day.
"We have enough stock," KNPC spokesman Mohammed Mansour Al Ajmi said.
"This is scheduled and we have planned for it."
The shutdown announcement was released amid Kuwaiti plans to renew a
tender for the construction of a 615,000 barrel per day refinery. Kuwait has
three refineries with a total capacity of 930,000 barrels per day.
