

In the 1990s, the company quickly scaled up production to meet supply shortages caused by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Saudi Aramco has exerted its hefty influence on the global crude supply several times in its long history. Synonymous with the Saudi Arabian oil industry, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (colloquially, Saudi Aramco or just Aramco) has emerged as a key player in the global petroleum scene. Weaving Together the Threads of Saudi Aramco Initially established as a camp for wildcatters, and then permanantly settled after the delivery of commercial oil production, Dhahran has been Saudi Aramco’s headquarters for nearly 80 years. Less than 10 miles south of the prolific Dammam Dome sits Dhahran, a city closely linked to the Saudi oil industry. More than 200 of these giant oil and gas fields are concentrated in the Persian Gulf region-meaning that Saudi Arabia drew a lucky hand, indeed. A supergiant field is one containing more than 5 billion BOE in reserves. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists has identified more than 500 oil fields as world-class “giants”-those with proven oil reserves of 500 million barrels of oil or natural gas reserves exceeding 3 Tcf. With 71 billion barrels of estimated oil in place, Ghawar takes the prize as the largest conventional oil field ever discovered. The fabled Dammam No.7 well established the existence of the supergiant Ghawar field in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ushered in a new age of petroleum wealth and power for a land that had comprised mostly nomadic tribes.

In March of 1938, on the heels of six commercial failures, wildcatters drilled a new well that heralded the arrival of the most prolific oil field yet discovered.
