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Board of directors of Saudi Aramco reconstituted with 4 new members

JEDDAH — The board of directors of Saudi Aramco has been reconstituted under Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al Naimi with four new members.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz issued a royal decree reconstituting Saudi Aramco's board of directors for a period of three years beginning on September 27.

The new members are: Khaled bin Saleh Al Sultan; rector of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Salim S Al Aydh; Saudi Aramco Senior Vice-President for Engineering and Project Management, Mark Moody-Stuart; former chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Peter Wolcke, former executive vice president of the International Finance Corporation and managing director of the World Bank.

The other members are: Ibrahim Al Assaf; minister of finance, Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Suwaiyel; president of the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology, Abdul Rahman Al Tuwaijeri; secretary-general of the Supreme Economic Council and chairman of the Capital Markets Authority, Abdallah S. Jum'ah; president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, Abdul Aziz bin Fahd Al Khayyal; senior vice-president of Saudi Aramco for refining, marketing and international, Khalid A. Al Falih; senior vice president of Saudi Aramco for industrial relations, and James W. Kinnear, former president and CEO of Texaco.

In a related development, Adel Al Tabib, vice president of Saudi Aramco for development and coordination of joint projects, addressing a conference at 'China Petrochemical Fuchs 2007' in Shanghai recently, said that Saudi Aramco is increasing its capabilities by drilling new wells as well as producing, refining and marketing crude oil. He added that the company aims to maintain its production capacity at a maximum of 12 million bpd by early 2009.

The company's refining capacity has been growing fast with fully owned projects and joint projects, he said.

Besides undertaking refining and marketing, the company focuses on petrochemical projects in joint ventures in China, Korea, the United States, Philippines, Japan and, of course, in Saudi Arabia.

According to Al Tabib, when all the new projects are fully commissioned, Saudi Aramco will become one of the top manufacturers of polyolefin in the world.

He stressed that the development projects of Saudi Aramco are two-pronged. One is on the domestic front with its cooperation with giant multinationals in joint ventures in the Kingdom such as the PetroRabigh project with Sumitomo Chemical. Another instance is Saudi Aramco's recent signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Dow Chemicals to set up a refinery complex and integrated petrochemical materials at Ras Tanura. These two projects would provide the basis for several other downstream industries. Aramco is also cooperating with ConocoPhilips and Total to build refineries for heavy crude.