Saudi Aramco aims to be the top integrated energy company

Saudi Arabia earlier this year reclaimed its position as the world’s top oil producer from Russia. Not content with this, state producer Saudi Aramco is pushing to become the world’s largest vertically integrated energy company

Saudi Arabia overtook Russia in March to become the world’s largest oil producer, pumping 9.923 million barrels of oil a day (b/d), nudging past Russia’s 9.920m b/d. According to the Gulf Oil Review, Saudi Arabia’s daily oil production averaged 9.753m barrels in August. The increase follows a banner year for the Saudi firm in 2011. According to Aramco's 2011 annual review, the company increased its output significantly by 15.2% in 2011 to 9.1m b/d in 2011, from 7.9m b/d the year before, while exports of crude soared 20.5% to 6.63m b/d. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of oil and has the largest production capacity, making it the key Opec swing producer. According to Ali al-Naimi,