Saudi Aramco

Aramco traces its beginnings to a 1933 Concession Agreement between Saudi Arabia and the Standard Oil CompanyStandard OilStandard Oil was an oil company founded in 1870 in Cleveland, Ohio, by John D. Rockefeller and others. Through mergers and expansion, and organizational forms including the trust of 1882 and the New Jersey holding company of 1899, it at one time controlled most of the refining capacity in the United States. In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of its holding company under the Sherman Anti-trust Act, and the companies split off from it later evolved into oil companies including ExxonMobil and Chevron.Open the full entry of California (SOCAL), which created a subsidiary, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), to manage the agreement. After surveys of the Saudi desert, drilling began in 1935.⁠[1]

After years of drilling with little result, SOCAL executives consulted chief geologist Max Steineke in 1937, who advised them to keep drilling. In 1938 commercial oil production began from Dammam No. 7, known as the Prosperity Well.⁠[1]

Renamed Aramco (the Arabian American Oil Company), the company reached crude oil production of 500,000 barrels per day in 1949. In 1950 it completed the 1,212-kilometer Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), then the world’s longest, linking eastern Saudi Arabia with the Mediterranean; in 1951 it found the Safaniyah field, which the company describes as the world’s largest offshore oil field discovered so far; and in 1958 its crude production exceeded 1 million barrels per day.⁠[1]

Cumulative crude oil production reached 5 billion barrels in 1962, and by 1971 average daily crude production had risen to 4.49 million barrels, roughly 1.6 billion barrels a year.⁠[1]

The Saudi government acquired a 25% interest in Aramco in 1973, raised it to 60% in 1974 and to 100% in 1980. Ali I. Al-Naimi became the company’s first Saudi president in 1984, and in 1988 the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) was formally established to take over all of Aramco’s responsibilities, with Al-Naimi as its first Saudi president and CEO.⁠[1]

In 1989 Saudi Aramco formed Star Enterprise, a joint venture with TexacoTexacoTexaco is an American oil company and fuel brand founded in Texas in 1902 as the Texas Company; its 1984 acquisition of Getty Oil led to a massive lawsuit by Pennzoil and a 1987 bankruptcy filing, and after merging with Chevron in 2001 it became a Chevron brand.Open the full entry in the United States, beginning its transformation from an oil producer and exporter into an integrated petroleum enterprise. The venture later evolved into Motiva, initially a partnership with Texaco and Shell; in 2017 Saudi Aramco became the sole owner of Motiva, which owns North America’s largest single-site crude oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.⁠[1]

In 1991 Saudi Aramco bought a 35% interest in SsangYong Oil Refining Company of South Korea (renamed S-Oil in 2000); in 1994 it acquired 40% of Petron Corporation, then the Philippines’ largest crude oil refiner and marketer; and in 1996 it bought 50% of the privately held Greek refiner Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries S.A. and of its marketing affiliate Avinoil.⁠[1]

In 1997 the company developed POWERS (Parallel Oil-Water-Gas-Reservoir Simulator), a high-resolution reservoir simulator; in 2000 it built its Research and Development Center (R&DC) in Dhahran; in 2010 it unveiled the second-generation GigaPOWERS, followed in 2016 by TeraPOWERS, which the company describes as the industry’s first trillion-cell reservoir simulation.⁠[1]

On December 11, 2019 Saudi Aramco listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) under the ticker ARAMCO, with shares beginning to trade at SAR 32. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sold 3 billion shares, 1.5% of the company’s share capital, priced at the top of the indicated range, for proceeds of SAR 96.0 billion (US$25.6 billion) before any exercise of the over-allotment option; the offering, which closed on December 4, drew subscriptions of SAR 446 billion (US$119 billion), 4.65 times the shares offered, from more than 5 million subscribers.⁠[2]

At the listing, President and CEO Amin H. NasserAmin NasserAmin Nasser is a Saudi petroleum engineer, president and CEO of Aramco, and a BlackRock director.Open the full entry said the debut marked “the completion of the world’s largest IPO.”⁠[2]

On January 12, 2020 the stabilising manager, Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry, exercised the over-allotment (“greenshoe”) option to sell a further 450 million shares at the offer price of SAR 32, lifting the total raised in the IPO to US$29.4 billion and the floated stake from 1.5% to 1.725%.⁠[3]

On June 17, 2020 Aramco announced that it had completed the acquisition of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, for SAR 259.125 billion (US$69.1 billion), or SAR 123.39 per share. As SABIC’s new majority shareholder, Aramco gained the ability to elect a majority of SABIC’s directors.⁠[4]

The company said Aramco and SABIC together produced nearly 90 million tonnes of petrochemicals in 2019.⁠[4]

On March 10, 2026 Aramco posted 2025 adjusted net income of US$104.7 billion, cash flow from operating activities of US$136.2 billion, free cash flow of US$85.4 billion, capital investment of US$52.2 billion and total shareholder distributions of US$85.5 billion, with a gearing ratio of 3.8% at December 31, 2025. The board declared a fourth-quarter base dividend of US$21.89 billion, up 3.5% year on year, and announced a share buyback program of up to US$3.0 billion over 18 months.⁠[5]

In the same results the company said production had started at Jafurah, operations had begun at the Tanajib Gas Plant, and plans were progressing to acquire a significant minority interest in HUMAIN.⁠[5]

On November 3, 2026 Aramco posted third-quarter 2026 adjusted net income of US$31.2 billion (US$28.6 billion a year earlier) and free cash flow of US$28.2 billion, and declared a third-quarter base dividend of US$21.9 billion; it also disclosed the acquisition of a 49% stake in HUMAIN, involving a transfer of assets and about US$2.6 billion in cash contributions.⁠[6]

Aramco reports a total workforce of more than 76,000 and operations in more than 50 countries, and manages oil reserves of 247.2 billion barrels. In 2025 its in-Kingdom natural gas production was 11.4 billion standard cubic feet per day and its petrochemicals production capacity was 59.3 million tons per year.⁠[7]

Amin H. Nasser is president and CEO and a member of the board of directors, having previously served as senior vice president of Upstream. He holds a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran and sits on the boards of HUMAIN and BlackRockBlackRockBlackRock is a publicly traded investment management company headquartered in New York, founded in 1988 by Larry Fink and seven others and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker BLK); its businesses include the iShares family of exchange-traded funds and the Aladdin investment and risk management platform. As of June 30, 2026, its assets under management totaled $15.3 trillion.Open the full entry.⁠[8]

Saudi Aramco: Official website: https://www.aramco.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/aramco (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aramco/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/AramcoVideo (opens in a new window).⁠[1]