Current Events
by Amy Austin
Saudi Arabia:
An Important Natural Resource
...for Class Afloat News, March 28, 1997
Crude oil, the raw material used to make petroleum, is perhaps the world’s most valuable resource. Petroleum is used to make gas for vehicles, medicines, fertilizers, foodstuffs, plastics, building materials, paints, cloth, and to generate electricity. It is easy to see then why large oil companies have an important place in the world. One of these companies, with its headquarters in Saudi Arabia, is Saudi Aramco.
The company, which exported its first tanker of crude oil in 1939, has become a global oil enterprise holding contracts with other oil companies from California to Tokyo. Seventy-five percent of its employees are from Saudi Arabia; and it is responsible for all refining, international product marketing, and the distribution of petroleum in Saudi Arabia. It has the capability of producing over 10 million gallons of oil a day.
Saudi Aramco has become such a powerful company that just a minor shift in the company’s standing can affect the stock market around the world, thus the company has a huge responsibility to keep moving forward. One of these responsibilities is to continue to find new oil reserves. Recently, the company began searching through the Empty Quarter, Rub Al-Khah, for more of the 280 billion gallons of gas estimated to be left in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They struck oil in the Shabya region, where experts estimate they will collect 3.5 billion gallons of crude oil. Now they are also scoping the Red Sea in the apparently never-ending search for more oil.
Unfortunately, there will come a day when the search does end. Crude oil takes millions and millions of years to form. Quite obviously, nature cannot come close to keeping up with Man’s demands. What will happen to a company like Saudi Aramco and its 50,000 employees when the last drop of crude oil is refined sometime in the mid 21st century? What will happen to all of us who depend on crude oil for our everyday lives? No one can absolutely predict the future, but scientists are continually testing alternative sources of energy to ensure life continues as close to normal as possible.