Saudi Aramco has participated in the UK-Saudi CEO Forum held in London to promote bilateral business and cooperation between the two countries
The forum was scheduled to coincide with the official visit to the UK by Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and saw Saudi Aramco sign a number of MoUs and commercial agreements.
Speaking at the Saudi-UK CEO Forum, Amin H Nasser, president and CEO at Saudi Aramco, said, “Saudi Aramco has a massive investment programme over the next 10 years. This includes a number of large world scale projects where British businesses can play a major role.”
“With Vision 2030, I believe there are more opportunities for collaboration and partnerships, not only in the oil and gas sector but also in infrastructure, manufacturing and services industries which are critical to manage and operate an enterprise like Saudi Aramco.”
The MoU with Royal Dutch Shell agreed to jointly pursue international gas business opportunities including upstream development, liquefaction projects and other aspects of the gas value chain. The MoU reflects Saudi Aramco’s strategy to expand its natural gas assets while acknowledging Royal Dutch Shell’s strength in LNG.
Saudi Aramco also signed a MoU with The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), one of the world’s leading think tanks and research establishments and a frequent host to visiting heads of government and senior political leaders, including high ranking Saudi ministers. The MoU reflects a long standing relationship and paves the way for further cooperation on assessing changes to the global and national energy markets and policies.
Saudi Aramco also signed an MoU with Imperial College London. The MoU will seek to establish joint projects targeting frontier technologies and developments in chemical engineering, petroleum and geoscience, mechanical engineering and advanced materials.
Finally, Saudi Aramco signed a further MoU with the internationally acclaimed Cambridge-based independent research and technology institution, TWI which is recognised as a global centre of excellence in materials joining and engineering processes. The MoU sets out plans to establish the multi-stakeholder Non-Metallic Innovation Center (NIC) at TWI alongside NSIRC (National Structural Integrity Research Centre), a partnership with leading academic institutions, research centres, energy companies and composite materials manufacturers.
The four MoUs were complemented during the visit with two other commercial agreements including one with Aberdeen-based Downhole Products to further strengthen Saudi Aramco’s drilling operations.
Apart form this, Saudi Aramco and SABIC have awarded Wood, a global British-owned provider of project management and professional and engineering services in the petrochemicals industrial field, a contract for project management and front-end engineering design (FEED).
