Aramco assures on capacity expansion

HOUSTON, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- State-owned Saudi Aramco said it will go ahead with plans to increase oil production capacity to meet the world's energy demand.

"Over the next five years, we plan to invest some $90 billion in our upstream and downstream projects in Saudi Arabia and around the world," Aramco President and Chief Executive Officer Abdallah Jumah said Tuesday at the CERA weeklong energy confab in Houston.

Jumah said oil production increments of about 3 million barrels per day were under way as part of Aramco's efforts.

"Some of this capacity will be utilized to offset natural decline of oil fields while the rest will be employed to expand our production capacity from about 11 million barrels per day ... to 12 million bpd next year," he said.

On the downstream side, he said, refining capacity will rise from 3 million bpd to about 6 million bpd.