https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudi-Arabia-To-Boost-Oil-Production-Capacity-To-13-Million-Bpd-in-2027.html
Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco continues to see healthy global oil demand ahead and expects to have boosted its oil production capacity to 13 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027 from 12 million bpd now, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said on Monday.
The capacity expansion will come fully online by 2027 and will come on in chunks, Nasser said at the Energy Intelligence Forum today.
The Saudi giant, the world’s biggest oil firm and the largest oil exporter globally, is working as fast as it can to reach that production capacity expansion, the executive said, as reported by Casey Merriman, Editorial Director at Energy Intelligence.
Upstream investment has a long lead time, Nasser noted.
Aramco’s CEO has often warned the market that the industry is underinvesting in new oil supply, which, regardless of many scenarios, will continue to be needed for decades.
Currently, oil demand is strong, Nasser said at the forum, expecting 99 million bpd by the end of 2021 and more than 100 million bpd in 2022.
Moreover, one of the International Energy Agency’s scenarios of oil demand at just 24 million bpd in 2050 under one of the IEA’s net-zero pathways is “not feasible,” Aramco’s chief executive added.
“We still expect growth in oil demand,” Nasser said.
“We maintain 25-year production profiles for new projects. Our philosophy is to provide cleaner oil and gas for the long term. We are developing it for the long term, not the short term,” the top executive at the Saudi oil giant said.
Unlike the international oil majors, Aramco is not scaling back any oil and gas production plans. On the contrary, it continues to invest in new supply—saying it aims to have lower emissions—expecting solid demand ahead. Some analysts believe that Big Oil’s race to net zero would be a boon to the national oil companies of the OPEC nations as they will be the ones left to invest in new supply.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com