Saudi Aramco is to invest more than US$300bn over the coming decade to reinforce its pre-eminent position in oil, maintain its spare oil production capacity, and pursue a large exploration and production programme centring on conventional and unconventional gas resources, said Amin H. Nasser, the oil giant’s president and CEO in a speech to the World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul
Nasser stressed that long term investments are needed to ensure that adequate and affordable supplies of oil and gas are available through the transition to clean energy sources.
“Rising demand for all sources of energy – with oil and gas at the heart of the mix – will be the reality for decades to come,” he said, warning that the long term situation of oil supplies is ‘increasingly worrying.” Growing oil demand, the natural decline of developed oil fields and the loss of around US$1 trillion of investments throughout the downturn will require around 20mn bpd to be offset over the next five years to counter these effects, he said. New discoveries are also on a major downward trend, he noted.
"Investments in smaller increments such as shale oil will just not cut it,” he said.
Nasser also focused on Saudi Aramco’s plans to leverage innovation and technology to minimise emissions and fulfil the Kingdom’s commitment to the Paris Agreement.
He highlighted plans to double production of natural gas to 23 Bcf/d over the coming decade, efforts to promote low emissions technologies, the focus on advancing carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies, and the conversion of crude oil to chemicals. Saudi Aramco will also play an increasing role in the Kingdom’s programme to build an initial renewables capacity of 9.5GW by 2023, he added.
