Aramco: Behind the World’s Largest Energy Company by Revenue

The Saudi Arabian Oil Group — better known as Aramco — is the second largest company in the world by revenue, only trailing behind American multinational finance corporation JPMorgan Chase, making $156.36bn in profit according to its latest statistics provided by Forbes.

An energy industry giant, Aramco’s history dates back to the 1930s and involves a small group of intrepid explorers and the sands of the Saudi Arabian desert.

Now, just over 90 years on, Aramco is now the world's largest oil producer and exporter, managing the majority of Saudi Arabia's hydrocarbon reserves. Operating upstream, midstream and downstream activities, its operations encompass exploration, production, refining, distribution and marketing.

With a history steeped in oil and gas, Aramco has evolved in recent years to shift its focus on make a positive impact on the energy transition, aiding Saudi Arabia’s move towards a net zero future.

How is Aramco supporting the energy transition?

Using its platform as one of the world’s biggest money-making companies, Aramco is committed to playing a leading role in the energy transition, highlighting its place and responsibility in helping the world achieve a net zero economy.

In a bid to solve some of the world's biggest sustainability challenges, Aramco believes oil and gas, with the aid of technological innovations, are essential in completing the highly-anticipated global energy transition.

Although this may strike some as an unusual approach, there is reasoning behind this statement. 

“We’re transitioning. And transitioning means that even our oil company — which used to be an oil company — became a hydrocarbon company. Now it’s becoming an energy company,” said Saudi prince and Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud said at the International Petroleum Technology Conference in Dhahran.

This comes as the leader highlights Aramco’s investments in petrochemicals and renewables as well as oil and gas. From this standpoint, the company takes the stance that, because oil and gas will continue as sources of energy as the world navigates the road towards decarbonisation and net zero alternatives, all roads to the run through the oil and gas industry. 

This marks a huge shift for Aramco, a state-owned company, because Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest crude exporter. The nation as a whole plans to fully decarbonise by 2060, with Aramco setting itself the goal of reaching operational net-zero emissions 10 years prior.

Aramco has sectioned its transition actions into five key areas:

• Mobile carbon capture
• Transportation
• Nonmetallic solutions
• Blue hydrogen and blue ammonia
• Crude oil and chemicals

It is working on innovative and cost-effective solutions for carbon management, focusing on CO2 capture and sequestration, emissions reduction and driving efficiency.

Aramco, a founding member of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), member of the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) and the Petroleum Environmental Research Forum, works to share its ideas and knowledge industry-wide, acknowledging the energy transition is something that must be tackled collectively and head-on.

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