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Our history
Driven by the curiosity to explore

Starting with just a small group of intrepid explorers, our history goes back more than
80 years to the sands of the Saudi desert.

Chapters
 1 The birth of Arabian oil

2 Radical expansion across Saudi Arabia

3 Making a name for ourselves

4 A truly global company

5 Innovation

6 Transformation

Chapter 1
The birth of Arabian oil
Saudi Aramco traces its beginnings to 1933 when a Concession
Agreement was signed between Saudi Arabia and the Standard Oil
Company of California (SOCAL). A subsidiary company, the California
Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), was created to manage the
agreement.

The work began right away. After surveying the Saudi desert for oil, drilling began in
1935. Following years of effort with little to show for it, in 1937 SOCAL executives
sought advice from their chief geologist, Max Steineke. Drawing on years of
fieldwork, Steineke told them to keep on drilling.

Finally, success

In 1938, the foundation of the future prosperity of Saudi Arabia and the success of
Saudi Aramco were realized with the commencement of commercial oil production
from Dammam No. 7 — the aptly named “Prosperity Well.”
Radical
Chapter 2 expansion across Saudi Arabia

From the late 1940s, we grew from strength to strength — hitting

record-breaking oil production milestones. Along the way, we were
making Saudi Arabia famous for its energy, too.

Now named Aramco (the Arabia American Oil Company), our crude oil production
hit 500,000 barrels per day in 1949.

Our rapid increase in oil production meant we had to expand our distribution efforts
as well. In 1950, we completed the 1,212-kilometer Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline)
— the longest in the world. The Tapline linked eastern Saudi Arabia to the
Mediterranean Sea, sharply cutting the time and cost of exporting oil to Europe.
And after two years of exploration in the shallow Arabian Gulf waters, we
discovered the Safaniyah field in 1951. It proved to be the world’s largest offshore
oil field. And in 1958, Aramco’s crude oil production exceeded 1 million barrels in a
calendar year.

Billions of barrels

By 1962, we reached another milestone, with cumulative crude oil production

reaching 5 billion barrels. And by 1971, shipments of crude oil and petroleum
products from the Ras Tanura Marine Terminal surpassed one billion barrels per year
for the very first time.
Chapter 3
Making a name for ourselves
Throughout the 1970s, we not only proved ourselves as an economic
force for Saudi Arabia, but we also returned to our Saudi Arabian
heritage. In 1973, the Saudi government bought a 25% interest in
Aramco, increasing that interest to 60% the following year.

In 1980, the Saudi government increased its interest in Aramco to 100%. Eight
years later, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) was officially established
— a new company to take over all the responsibilities of Aramco, with His
Excellency Ali I. Al-Naimi becoming our first Saudi president in 1984, and the first
Saudi president and CEO in 1988.

The following year, Saudi Aramco began its transformation from an oil-producing
and exporting company to an integrated petroleum enterprise, with the formation
of Star Enterprises in 1989 — a joint venture with Texaco in the United States. This
would evolve to become Motiva, initially a partnership with Texaco and Shell, which
in 2017 progressed to Saudi Aramco being the sole owner of North America’s
largest single-site crude oil refinery at Port Arthur, Texas.
Chapter 4
A truly global company

Throughout the 1990s, we gradually extended our ties and partnerships

across the world — making several international investments, starting
with our purchase in 1991 of a 35% interest in the SsangYong Oil
Refining Company (renamed S-Oil in 2000) in the Republic of Korea.

Our expansion continued in 1994 when we acquired a 40% interest in Petron

Corporation, the largest crude oil refiner and marketer in the Philippines. And then
again in 1996, when we made several more overseas investments in Europe by
purchasing 50% in privately held Greek refiner Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries
S.A., and its marketing affiliate, Avinoil Industrial Commercial and Maritime Oil
Company, S.A.
Chapter 5
Innovation

Leading up to the millennium, using advanced techniques to help us

discover and extract crude oil became essential. We needed technology
on our side.

In 1997, we developed POWERS (Parallel Oil-Water-Gas-Reservoir Simulator). A high-

resolution reservoir simulator that models and predicts the performance of super-
giant reservoirs, POWERS was so successful that it went on to inspire a range of
more powerful and precise Saudi Aramco simulation software.

Witnessing the advantages of technological advancements firsthand, in 2000 we

built a state-of-the-art Research and Development Center (R&DC) in Dhahran for
our scientists. We used this work as the foundation for a network of research
centers across the world, which to this day are working on breakthroughs to
increase discovery and recovery, reduce costs, enhance safety, and protect the
environment.

Our success in world-scale innovation was highlighted when in 2010 we unveiled

our unrivaled giga-cell reservoir simulation technology, GigaPOWERS — the second
generation of POWERS. And then, six years later, TeraPOWERS — the industry’s first
trillion cell reservoir simulation.
Chapter 6
Transformation

By the early 2000s, to achieve our vision of becoming the world’s

leading integrated energy and chemicals enterprise, we continued to
diversify even further.

With many ways of delivering value from a barrel of oil — including nonmetallic and
crude-to-chemicals products, we moved beyond traditional markets and uses for oil
and gas while also investing in new technological solutions to achieve cleaner, more
efficient production and consumption of oil, including enhancing the efficiency and
sustainability of transportation with new high-performance engines and fuels.

Looking forward, we envision transforming billions more barrels of oil and trillions of
cubic feet of gas into multiple streams of value for Saudi Aramco, the Kingdom, and
its people while — at the same time — continuing to remain a reliable supplier of
sustainable energy to the world.
Recent events

DHAHRAN, December 25, 2019

Saudi Aramco welcomes new agreement between Saudi Arabia and

Kuwait for resumption of oil production

DHAHRAN, December 17, 2019

Aramco acquires 17% of South Korean Hyundai Oilbank

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