Construction of Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco is the state-owned petroleum company of Saudi Arabia and one of the largest oil producers in the world. Its origins lie in the early 1930s, when the kingdom granted an oil concession to Standard Oil of California, which set up a subsidiary to prospect in the eastern part of the country. Oil was found in commercial quantities at Dammam in 1938, and the enterprise grew into the Arabian American Oil Company, known as Aramco and owned by American oil majors. During the 1970s the Saudi government bought into the company step by step and took full ownership by 1980; it was later renamed Saudi Aramco. It operates giant fields such as Ghawar and Safaniya, and in 2019 it sold a small share of its stock on the Saudi exchange.

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