Saudi Arabia plans to increase oil production capacity by 2.3 million

The Saudi oil company ARAMCO said it will proceed with plans to increase its production capacity of oil by 2.3 million barrels daily during 4 years.

The first deputy of ARAMCO chairman for explorations and production affairs Abdullah al-Seif said that additional oil, most of it of light crude Arab oil, will come from four projects that will be completed by the fall of 2009.

Seif said that the company is obliged to keep a surplus of production capacity estimated between 1.5 to 2 million barrels daily at all times as a surplus.

At the meantime, Saudi Arabia is pumping 9 million barrels of oil daily and is keeping an extra production capacity for emergency estimated between 1.5 and 2 million barrels daily. At the meantime, the Saudi production capacity is estimated at 11 million barrels daily.

Al-Seif added that the new production capacity will come from "Hareed" project which will produce 300,000 barrels every day in 2006. This will be followed in 2007 by an increase in production capacity in Kharsaneyah, Abu Hadareyah and al-Fadeli projects.

A surplus energy is expected at 300,000 barrels daily through expanding al-Sheiba and al-Arab al-Awsat fields in 2008 in addition to an increase in Khareis field at 1.2 million barrels daily that will be invested in 2009.