Vela Orders 4 VLCCs for $600 million

Daewoo Shipbuilding Wins Order for Oil Tankers at Record Price
By Kyunghee Park
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg)

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world's third-largest shipbuilder, received an order to build four crude tankers at an industry record price from Vela International Marine Ltd. of Saudi Arabia.

The 317,000-deadweight-ton tankers were priced at about $151 million each, Seoul-based Daewoo said in an e-mailed statement today. A 300,000-ton vessel cost $142 million at the end of September, according to Clarkson Plc, the world's biggest shipbroker. The order was announced yesterday.

Shipyards in South Korea, the world's biggest shipbuilding nation, have received record orders this year as global demand for iron ore, fuel, toys and computers increase the need vessels. Ship prices have more than doubled to a record since 2003, when they came off from a 10-year low.

``The order will help further improve Daewoo Shipbuilding's profitability,'' the shipbuilder said in the statement.

Including the latest order, Daewoo Shipbuilding now has a total of $18 billion in new contracts this year, surpassing its target of $17 billion. The company's backlog rose to about $39 billion, representing more than three years of work.

Daewoo Shipbuilding added 2.6 percent to 50,800 won as of 9:48 a.m. in Seoul, compared with a 2.4 percent advance in the benchmark Kospi index. The stock has climbed 74 percent this year, about double the Kospi's gain.

Aramco to build $8bn refinery

Aramco to build $8bn refinery
by Reuters
13 June 2007

Saudi Aramco, the state oil company of OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia, has launched a project to build a new oil refinery, the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) reported.

MEED said the refinery at Ras Tanura, with a processing capacity of up to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Arabian heavy crude, will cost about $7 billion to $8 billion.

Saudi Aramco has a 550,000 bpd oil refinery in Ras Tanura in the east of the kingdom, the world's largest oil exporter.

Aramco Manifa Field Project on Target

Saudi Aramco $10B Manifa Field Project on Target for Mid-2011

Apr 12, 2007 Dow Jones Newswires

DUBAI - Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world's largest oil company by production, is on schedule with plans to develop the Manifa offshore oil field to produce 900,000 barrels a day of crude by mid-2011, the company has said.

Plans for the field development are "proceeding on schedule" to be completed in June 2011, the Manifa project management team said at a recent progress update meeting in London, according to a report posted on Aramco's Web site Wednesday.

The estimated $10 billion Manifa development program, Aramco's largest-ever offshore project, aims to add 900,000 barrels a day of Arabian Heavy crude and 65,000 barrels a day of condensate production.

The project will also process 90 million cubic feet a day of natural gas.

Persian Gulf oil producers are spending income generated from three years of high oil prices to expand and upgrade their crude oil production capacity to meet rising global demand, in particular from fast-growing Asian economies such as China and India.

Aramco to Cut Oil Supply to Asia

Saudi Aramco to Cut Oil Supply to Asia a 7th Month
By Nesa Subrahmaniyan

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Aramco, the world's largest state oil company, will maintain a cut in crude oil supply to Asian refiners for a seventh month in May. xxx

Saudi Aramco will reduce mainly contracted supply of its Arab Heavy crude exports, said three refinery officials who received notices and asked not to be identified because of confidentiality agreements with the Dhahran, Saudi Arabia-based oil producer. The company has lowered shipments below contract levels since November.

The supply cuts are between 9 percent and 10 percent of contracted volumes, the officials said. Saudi Aramco is lowering exports to Asian refiners in April by an average 9 percent, and the cuts this month and in May are more than the 7 percent reduction in March shipments.

Saudi Aramco's export reduction is to comply with 1.7 million-barrel-a-day production cuts agreed last year by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Saudi Aramco Found More Oil Than It Produced in 2006

by Oliver Klaus
Feb 28, 2007

DUBAI - Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world's largest oil company by production, discovered 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil reserves last year, 6% more than it produced, the Saudi Press Agency reported Wednesday.

Saudi Aramco also added 10.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to its reserves in 2006, more than expected, Chief Executive Abdullah Jumah said at the company's board meeting in Dhahran, according to SPA.

Saudi Arabia holds the world's largest oil reserves at 264.2 billion bbl and the world's fourth largest gas reserves at 243.6 trillion cubic feet, according to the BP Statistical Review 2006.

Aramco's installed oil production capacity increased to 10.7 million barrels a day by the end of 2006, SPA reported Jumah as saying.

The figure doesn't include oil production from the partitioned neutral zone shared between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The capacity addition of 300,000 b/d came from the completion of Aramco's Haradh field increment last year.

Aramco also continues to carry out work on 52 projects, Jumah said, according to SPA.

© 2007 Dow Jones Newswires.