Amin Nasser on renewables, chemicals, oil & gas plans — Aramco earnings

RIYADH: Saudi Aramco is betting heavily on gas and chemicals to generate more revenues and enhance global energy security, CEO Amin Nasser told reporters at a media briefing following the release of its 2021 financial results.

Here are the key takeaways from the briefing on the company’s plans:

• Oil will remain a key driver for Aramco’s business but the company operates under strict directions from the government. It gets its monthly allocation from the Ministry of Energy and the size of output is based on agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC+.
• There is expected growth coming from oil with OPEC+ releasing every month an additional 400,000 barrels per day.
• So, there is an increase in production and higher oil prices.
• Renewables is also an area for long-term growth with Aramco expecting its contribution to the Kingdom’s overall generation capacity to be around 12 GW by 2030.
• Aramco is also seeing better margins from its downstream assets with more efficiency.
• SABIC is also enjoying good margins and this is reflecting well on Aramco’s consolidated balance sheet.
• So, in the downstream, Aramco’s margins and SABIC are the source of the good returns.
• Gas is also an area of expansion for Aramco with output capacity going up by more than 50 percent over the next ten years.
• The issue with gas is that it’s sold locally but since it results in less liquid burning in the Kingdom, Aramco can free more valuable crude for exports.
• This expansion in gas, will basically avail close to 1 million barrel per day for selling abroad.
• Gas also comes with NGLs and a lot of ethane.
• That also can be utilized for expanding Aramco’s chemical operation as it will provide more feedstock.
• Chemicals business is also major growth for Aramco as it plans up to 4 million barrels per day of liquid-to-chemical projects.
• Aramco has announced one joint venture in China and it is currently working with Sinopec on a number of opportunities as well as with others in Asia.
• All these opportunities are mainly highly integrated complexes with more than 50 percent of liquid-to-chemical.
• “That would represent huge growth opportunities for us, it will ensure placement for our crude over the long term and at the same time higher value by shifting more of our liquid to chemical, and also it’ll help us also to reduce our emissions as we would reduce.”