Saudi Aramco said to consider Zuluf oilfield expansion

State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco), the world’s largest crude exporter, is considering building new facilities to boost production of Arabian Heavy crude from the Zuluf offshore oilfield, Reuters reported citing industry sources.

The central processing plant is expected to include two units with a total capacity of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) to process Arabian Heavy crude.

Industry sources estimate Zuluf’s production capacity is between 550,000-600,000 bpd.

Saudi Aramco declined to comment on the report.

Saudi Aramco is expected to invite companies to bid for front-end engineering and design later this month with an award seen in September.

Like the Marjan increment, it will take until 2021 for the project to be completed, one of the sources said.

Saudi Aramco’s CEO Amin Nasser said this month the firm planned to invest more than $300 billion in the coming decade “to reinforce its pre-eminent position in oil, maintain its spare oil production capacity and pursue a large exploration and production program centered on conventional and unconventional gas resources.”

Aramco has an oil production capacity of 12 million bpd.