Saudi Aramco: A timeline

13 January 2008

MEED details Saudi Aramco's history, all the way back to its origins as Casoc in 1933, through the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia and up to its position in the present day.

  • 1930: Standard Oil of California (Socal) takes over the concession of New Zealander Frank Holmes, who was acting for a UK syndicate in Bahrain.

  • 1932: Socal finds oil in Bahrain, prompting the search for oil in Saudi Arabia.

  • 1933: King Abdulaziz grants oil concession to California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), an affiliate of Socal. Oil prospecting begins in Dhahran in the Eastern Province.

  • 1936: Texaco acquires 50 per cent interest in Socal's concession.

  • 1938: Kingdom's first commercial oil field is discovered at Dhahran.

  • 1939: First tanker load of petroleum is exported.

  • 1944: Casoc changes its name to Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco).

  • 1945: Ras Tanura refinery begins operations.

  • 1948: Standard Oil of New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum Oil (now both ExxonMobil) join Socal and Texaco as owners of Aramco.

  • 1948: Discovery of the Ghawar oil field.

  • 1950: 1,700km Trans-Arabian pipeline (Tapline) is completed, linking Eastern Province oil fields to Lebanon and the Mediterranean.

  • 1956: Aramco confirms scale of Ghawar and Safaniya, respectively the world's largest oil field and largest offshore oil field.

  • 1973: Government acquires a 25 per cent participation interest in Aramco.

  • 1975: Master Gas System project is launched.

  • 1980: Government acquires 100 per cent participation interest in Aramco.

  • 1987: East-West crude oil pipeline is completed, boosting capacity to 3.2 million barrels a day.

  • 1988: Saudi Aramco is established.

  • 1989: High-quality oil and gas are discovered south of Riyadh, the first find outside the company's original operating area.

  • 1991: Ras Tanura refinery upgrade project launched (completed in 1998).

  • 1993: Aramco takes charge of domestic refining, marketing, distribution and joint venture refining.

  • 1994: Maximum sustained crude oil production capacity is returned to 10 million barrels a day.

  • 1995: Development of the remote Shaybah field in Rub al-Khali (Empty Quarter) begins.

  • 1997: Development of Hawiyah gas plant at the southern end of the Ghawar field begins.

  • 1998: Saudi Aramco, Texaco and Shell establish Motiva Enterprises, a major refining and marketing joint venture in the southern and eastern US.

  • 1998: Shaybah field comes on stream, one of the largest projects of its kind, processing 500,000 barrels of oil a day.

  • 1999: Development of Haradh gas plant begins.

  • 2000: Petroleum Intelligence Weekly ranks Aramco number one in the world for the 11th straight year, based on the kingdom's crude oil reserves and production.

  • 2000: Aramco Gulf Operations is established to assume management of the government's petroleum interest in the offshore neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

  • 2000: Aramco launches abortive upstream gas initiative intended to elicit IOC investment.

  • 2001: Hawiyah gas plant, capable of processing up to 1.6 billion cubic feet a day of non-associated gas, comes on stream.

  • 2001: Qatif field development begins.

  • 2003: Hawiya natural gas liquids recovery programme launched to process 4 billion cubic feet a day.

  • 2004: Qataf facilities come on line, the first to process extra light, light and medium grades of crude.

  • 2005: Khursaniyah and Khurais field developments begin.

  • 2005: Shaybah field expansion project starts.

  • 2006: Aramco and Sumitomo break ground on Petro-Rabigh integrated refining/ petrochemical project.

  • 2007: Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi outlines projects to achieve 12.5 million-barrel-a-day production capacity by 2009.

  • 2007: First wells drilled by IOCs in the Empty Quarter all reported to be dry.

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