Saudi Aramco plans to invest $334bn over the next decade to sustain oil and gas production, an executive from the state-run company said.

Abdulaziz al-Abdulkarim, vice president procurement and supply chain management, said that 42 per cent of the total would be spent on drilling, with 31 per cent on surface facilities and 11 per cent on infrastructure.

“That’s $33bn annually that will be progressively spent into the Saudi economy,” Al-Abdulkarim said at the Petrotech conference in Bahrain on 26 September.

Al-AbdulKarim also outlined the targets of the company’s In Kingdom Total Value Add (IKTVA) programme, which aims to increase the value of goods and services procured in the Saudi energy sector.

Saudi Aramco aims to double the percentage of locally-produced energy-related goods and services it procures from 35 per cent to 70 per cent by 2021.

By shifting the focus of the energy sector to local industries, Aramco aims to create “hundreds of thousands of high-skilled jobs and long-term careers for Saudi citizens across growth industries”.

A third target is for the Saudi energy goods and services industry to export 30 per cent of output over the same timeframe.

Saudi Arabia is attempting to diversify its economy to reduce dependence on crude oil export revenues as part of the 2030 National Transformation Programme. The government plans to sell shares in state-owned Aramco in early 2018.