Saudi Arabia committed to meeting future oil demand: Al-Falih

State-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco is committed to meeting global energy needs through continued investments, Saudi energy minister Khalid Al-Falih said.

The oil industry’s preparedness for the future “remains in question” as the sector has lost an estimated $1 trillion in planned investments since the beginning of the market downturn, the minister said in a foreword in Saudi Aramco’s annual review for 2017.

“The situation becomes more disconcerting when seen in the light of global demand growing at the rate of 1 to 1.5 million barrels per day annually, and maturing oil fields around the world exhibiting steepening natural declines that must also be offset by continuing investment in the industry,” Al-Falih added.

“To respond to this situation, significant new investments are required in additional capacity and expanded and upgraded infrastructure,” the minister noted.

Saudi Aramco is investing to further strengthen upstream oil production, and also expects to double the domestic production of gas, it said in the report.

Commenting on Aramco’s much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO), Al-Falih said the company “continued to prepare itself for the listing of its shares.”

According to the report published on Friday, Aramco discovered two new oil fields last year: Sakab, southeast of Haradh, and Zumul, in the Rub’ al-Khali.

The oil giant was able to increase capacity of the Khurais field by 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2018, Aramco president and CEO Amin Nasser said.

In gas, Aramco readied its Midyan nonassociated gas field, began projects to expand production and processing capacity, and brought online the first unconventional gas in Saudi Arabia. A new gas reservoir was also discovered last year: Jauf, in the Sahba field.

“Boosting our gas supplies is in line with our core upstream objective to provide additional fuel and feedstock for local industry while enabling increased exports of higher value liquids,” Nasser said.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia saw average oil production of 10.2 million bpd, down from 10.7 million bpd the previous year.

Crude oil reserves stood at 256.74 billion barrels, while condensates were 4.1 billion barrels.

Aramco’s production of natural gas rose to 12.4 billion standard cubic feet a day (scfd), up from 12.03 billion scfd in 2016.

Saudi Arabia led OPEC’s decision to cut oil output starting January 2017, as part of efforts to shore up prices and ease the supply glut in the market.

In June, after the market started to re-balance, OPEC and its allies decided to increase production by around 1 million bpd to meet consumer demand.