Saudi Aramco Company (Essay Sample)

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Oil Production at Saudi Aramco Company
Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest oil producer and exporter company. It is a state-owned company and it produces 95% of the Saudi Arabia oil. The company has got the largest oil reserves with billions of barrels. Most of the Aramco reserves are located in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, including the world’s largest onshore field in Ghawar and the world’s largest offshore field at Safaniya in the Arabian Gulf (Washington 1987-2000). Oil production is considered to be the main course of environmental pollution, to curb the situation, Saudi Aramco has continued to be on the frontline in creating new innovative ways that reduces environmental damage caused by oil extraction. The company has significantly contributed to environmental protection through its safety measures and environmental conservation policies. As that is not enough Saudi Aramco is committed in extracting oil with new methods that have little impact to the environment.
To further reduce the damages of the oil extraction to the environment, the company has developed new innovative solutions in crude oil production. The extraction of oil at the Manifa Field had presented major environmental changes. If the methods such as conventional shallow water drill rigs were used to extract oil, it would damage marine environment. Likewise the oil was to be reached with less environmental impact. Therefore the solution was to create an onshore drill site above oil field. It was followed by constructing man- made drilling highlands which were 27 in number along with a 41km causeway. This enables good water circulation which is essential for marine life. Extended reach technology was applied to tap into reserves at long distances from the wells on the surface. The project’s innovative engineering design was purposely created to optimize production and reduce environmental damage (New York Aramco 1960).
Saudi Aramco have several plant facilities that handles the crude oil from its reserves, one of such plant facility is ‘Abqaiq’. The processes applied in oil extraction in this plant give a broader view of what happens in other Aramco plant facilities. Abqaiq comprises of three primary processing units, which include oil processing unit, an NGL facility and a utilities unit. Oil processing unit consists of spheroids and stabilizers columns in which hydrogen sulphide and hydrocarbons are separated from the crude oil. In the second processing unit, the NGL unit, it contains compression trains, a stripper and a deethaniser column. The utility unit; power, stream, clean water and air is supplied through this facility to the oil and the NGL facility. The power utilized by this facility is generated by six power generators, stream turbines and combustion gas turbine generators. The steam generated from boilers is supplied to the three processing units so as to increase the pressure needed in separating HSO4 AND HC from the crude oil (Houston 2002).
Crude oil is extracted from the oil wells under high pressure. It contains oil, dissolved gas, water particles and a significant quantity of hydrogen sulphide. The oil is depressurized and then separated from the dissolved gases in the Gas oil Separation Plant. In the separation plant, the oil is depressurized in spheroids to free the dissolved gases, after which water and dissolved gases are extracted from the oil. The oil under pressure is sent into the stabilization unit where it is then pumped into stabilizer columns. The final separation of the gas and HSO4 takes place in the stabilization unit. The off gases from the processing unit are sent to the NGL facility for further processing. The light gasses are transported to other gas plants for processing and the NGL product is other refineries for fractionation (New York 2012).
In conclusion, internationally, Saudi Aramco holds substantial joint venture and investment interests in the refining and marketing activities in the United States, Korea, Japan, and China. The expansion of the company’s capacity to discover, produce, process and transport natural gas is currently ...