dhahran saudi arabia type state owned enterprise industry oil and gas founded 1933 as california arabian standard oil co. 1944 as aramco 1988 as saudi aramco headquarters dhahran saudi arabia area served worldwide key people amin h. nasser president & ceo khalid a. al falih chairman & minister of petroleum and mineral resources products petroleum natural gas and other petrochemicals revenue us 378 billion 2014 1 owner saudi arabian government 100 % number of employees 55 000 2016 2 website www.saudiaramco.com saudi aramco arabic ar mk s su diyyah officially the saudi arabian oil company most popularly known just as aramco formerly arabian american oil company is a saudi arabian national petroleum and natural gas company based in dhahran . 3 4 saudi aramco s value has been estimated at anywhere between us 1.25 trillion 5 and us 10 trillion 6 making it the world s most valuable company . saudi aramco has both the world s largest proven crude oil reserves at more than 260 billion barrels 4.1 1010 m3 7 and largest daily oil production . 8 saudi aramco owns operates and develops all energy resources based in saudi arabia . according to a 2015 forbes report aramco is said to be the world s largest oil and gas company . headquartered in dhahran saudi arabia 9 saudi aramco operates the world s largest single hydrocarbon network the master gas system . its 2013 crude oil production total was 3.4 billion barrels 540 000 000 m3 7 and it manages over 100 oil and gas fields in saudi arabia including 288.4 trillion standard cubic feet scf of natural gas reserves . 7 saudi aramco operates the ghawar field the world s largest onshore oil field and the safaniya field the world s largest offshore oil field . 10 contents 1 history 2 operation 2.1 exploration 2.2 refining and chemicals 2.2.1 list of refineries 2.3 shipping 3 environmental record 4 financial data 5 cyber attack 6 see also 7 references 8 bibliography 9 external links history edit saudi aramco s origins trace to the oil shortages of world war i and the exclusion of american companies from mesopotamia by great britain and france under the san remo petroleum agreement of 1920 . 11 the us republican administration had popular support for an open door policy which herbert hoover secretary of commerce initiated in 1921 . standard oil of california socal was among those us companies seeking new sources of oil from abroad . 12 through its subsidiary company the bahrain petroleum co. bapco socal struck oil in bahrain in may 1932 . this event heightened interest in the oil prospects of the arabian mainland . on 29 may 1933 the saudi arabian government granted a concession to socal in preference to a rival bid from the iraq petroleum co. . 13 the concession allowed socal to explore for oil in saudi arabia . socal assigned this concession to a wholly owned subsidiary california arabian standard oil casoc . in 1936 with the company having had no success at locating oil the texas oil co. texaco purchased a 50 % stake of the concession . 14 after four years of fruitless exploration the first success came with the seventh drill site in dhahran in 1938 a well referred to as dammam no. 7 . this well immediately produced over 1 500 barrels per day 240 m3 d giving the company confidence to continue . on 31 january 1944 the company name was changed from california arabian standard oil co. to arabian american oil co. or aramco . 15 in 1948 standard oil of new jersey later known as exxon purchased 30 % and socony vacuum later mobil purchased 10 % of the company with socal and texaco retaining 30 % each . 16 the newcomers were also shareholders in the iraq petroleum co. and had to get the restrictions of the red line agreement lifted in order to be free to enter into this arrangement . 17 in 1950 king abdulaziz threatened to nationalize his country s oil facilities thus pressuring aramco to agree to share profits 50 50 . 18 a similar process had taken place with american oil companies in venezuela a few years earlier . the american government granted us aramco member companies a tax break known as the golden gimmick equivalent to the profits given to king abdulaziz . in the wake of the new arrangement the company s headquarters were moved from new york to dhahran . 19 in 1951 the company discovered the safaniya oil field the world s largest offshore field . in 1957 the discovery of smaller connected oil fields confirmed the ghawar field as the world s largest onshore field . 10 in 1973 following us support for israel during the yom kippur war the saudi arabian government acquired a 25 % stake in aramco . it increased its shareholding to 60 % by 1974 and finally took full control of aramco by 1980 20 by acquiring a 100 % stake in the company . aramco partners continued to operate and manage saudi arabia s oil fields . 21 in november 1988 a royal decree changed its name from arabian american oil co. to saudi arabian oil co. or saudi aramco 20 and took the management and operations control of saudi arabia s oil and gas fields from aramco and its partners . in 1989 90 high quality oil and gas was discovered in three areas south of riyadh the raghib area about 77 miles southeast of the capital . 22 in 2005 saudi aramco was the world s largest company with an estimated market value of 781 billion . 23 in 2011 saudi aramco started production from the karan gas field with an output of more than 400 million scf per day . 24 in january 2016 the deputy crown prince of saudi arabia mohammad bin salman al saud announced he was considering listing shares of the state owned company and to sell around 5 % of them in order to build a large sovereign fund . 25 operation edit headquarters of aramco services co. in houston saudi aramco is headquartered in dhahran but its operations span the globe and include exploration production refining chemicals distribution and marketing . all these activities of the company are monitored by the saudi arabian ministry of petroleum and mineral resources together with the supreme council for petroleum and minerals . 26 however the ministry has much more responsibility in this regard than the council . 26 exploration edit a significant portion of the saudi aramco workforce consists of geophysicists and geologists . saudi aramco has been exploring for oil and gas reservoirs since 1982 . most of this process takes place at the exploration and petroleum engineering center expec . originally saudi aramco used cray supercomputers cray 1m in its expec computer center ecc 27 to assist in processing the colossal quantity of data obtained during exploration and in 2001 ecc decided to use linux clusters as a replacement for the decommissioned cray systems . ecc installed a new supercomputing system in late 2009 with a disk storage capacity of 1 050 terabytes i.e exceeding one petabyte the largest storage installation in saudi aramco s history to support its exploration in the frontier areas and the red sea . 28 refining and chemicals edit while the company did not originally plan on refining oil the saudi government wished to have only one company dealing with oil production . therefore on 1 july 1993 the government issued a royal decree merging saudi aramco with samarec the country s oil refining company . the following year a saudi aramco subsidiary acquired a 40 % equity interest in petron corp. the largest crude oil refiner and marketer in the philippines . since then saudi aramco has taken on the responsibility of refining oil and distributing it in the country . 10 currently saudi aramco s refining capacity is more than 4 million barrels per day 640 000 m3 d international joint and equity ventures 2 060 mbbl d 328 000 000 m3 d domestic joint ventures 1 108 mpbd and wholly owned domestic operations 995 mbbl d 158 200 000 m3 d . this figure is set to increase as more projects go online . 29 saudi aramco s downstream operations are shifting its emphasis to integrate refineries with petrochemical facilities . their first venture into it is with petro rabigh which is a joint venture with sumitomo chemical co. that began in 2005 on the coast of the red sea . 10 list of refineries edit list of domestic refineries 29 jeddah refinery 60 000 bbl d 9 500 m3 d nominal capacity ras tanura refinery includes a crude distillation unit a gas condensate unit a hydrocracker and catalytic reforming . riyadh refinery yanbu refinery list of domestic refining ventures 29 the saudi aramco mobil refinery co. ltd. samref yanbu the saudi aramco shell refinery co. sasref jubail petro rabigh rabigh saudi aramco base oil co. luberef saudi aramco total refining and petrochemical co. satorp jubail 30 yanbu aramco sinopec refinery yasref yanbu 11 july 2012 list of international refining ventures 29 fujian refining and petrochemical co. frpc people s republic of china sinopec senmei fujian petroleum co. ltd. sspc people s republic of china motiva enterprises llc united states showa shell japan s oil republic of korea shipping edit saudi aramco has employed several tankers to ship crude oil refined oil and gas to various countries . it has created a subsidiary company vela international marine to handle shipping to north america europe and asia . 31 environmental record edit this article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . september 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message according to geographer richard heede 32 aramco has led the list of companies with the highest level of co2 emissions globally since 1995 with a towering 1 707 million tonnes 1.680 109 long tons ; 1.882 109 short tons in 2013 amounting to almost 3.4 % of worldwide anthropogenic emissions . 33 the company has an environmental master plan to reduce the emissions provided by capital programs some of which has already been completed . citation needed saudi aramco is a leading company in the region in reducing sulfur emissions co2 and flaring . citation needed also a ceo dashboard complemented by an annual environmental report shows the exact environmental statistics and key performance indicators in terms of air and sea water pollutions . citation needed financial data edit the ft s non public 150 by the financial times and mckinsey the study of the world s largest unlisted companies 2006 . 34 35 financial data 2011 36 fiscal year end december revenue 182 billion est. 2010 37 employees 55 441 employee growth 1 yr 4.50 % oil reserves 259.9 billion barrels 4.132 1010 m3 production 12.0 million barrels per day 1 910 000 m3 d cyber attack edit aramco computers were attacked by a virus on 15 august 2012 . 38 39 the following day aramco announced that none of the infected computers were part of the network directly tied to oil production and that the company would soon resume full operations . 40 hackers claimed responsibility for the spread of the computer virus . 41 the virus hit companies within the oil and energy sectors . 42 43 a group named cutting sword of justice claimed responsibility for an attack on 30 000 saudi aramco workstations causing the company to spend a week restoring their services . 38 the group later indicated that the shamoon virus had been used in the attack . 44 due to this attack the main site of aramco went down and a message came to the home page apologizing to customers . 45 computer security specialists said that