The Oil Kingdom: Part Two

Saudi aramco was originally an American company it goes way back to the 1930s when two American geologists from Standard Oil of California discovered oil in the Saudi desert standard oil formed a Consortium with Texico Exxon and mobile which became a ramco it was until the 1980s that Saudi Arabia bought them out and nationalize the company today Saudi aramco is the custodian of the country's so full source of wealth and power Saudi aramco is a massive complex along the Persian Gulf hundreds of miles east of the mega projects over 16,000 people work here at the company's compound which is like a little country with its own security Force schools hospitals even its own Airline abdalah Juma is president and CEO of Saudia ramco so this is your headquarters this is our headquarters and uh how big is a ramco Saudi aramco is the world's largest oil producing company and it's the richest company in the world worth according to the latest estimate $781 billion this is the heart of our operation this is the nerve center it keeps going look at this this is gigantic he gave us a tour of the company's Command Center where engineers scrutinize and analyze every aspect of the company's operations on a 220t digital screen every facility in the Kingdom every drop of oil that comes from the ground is monitored in real time in this room in this room and we have control of each and every facility each and every pipeline each and every valve on the pipeline and there for we know exactly what is happening in the system from A to Z what this map shows is all the oil fields in Saudi Arabia that big green blob in the middle is gawar the largest onshore oil field in the world and the one on top is safia the largest offshore oil field in the world and these green squares are super tankers that are being monitored on the high seas in real time so there's not anything that goes on with oil with Saudi Arabian oil that isn't known in this room absolutely absolutely how much did this facility cost you a lot of money and what you see today is a company that is as professionally sound as any International oil company before Ali al- naimi became oil Minister he ran s aramco for 11 years he was the first Saudi president and CEO you have as you just said one of the most efficient cuttingedge 21st century companies in the world yes within one of the most religious conservative countries in the world it's it's almost a paradox we were surprised by this I don't think there is any any really surprise many people have images of Saudi Arabia but they really change their views and images when they come and visit Saudi Arabia but to Western eyes it is a paradox skyscrapers traffic jams and shopping malls coexist with ancient tribal customs the king and the Quan reign supreme and women everywhere are required to cover themselves in Black from head to toe even I had to wear the Abaya the rules apply everywhere it seems except for the women at Saudia ramco when the US oil companies came here in the 40s and 50s the Americans moved into the area with their families and developed it to suit their tastes and their way of life they created a replica of American Suburbia today you could be in the outskirts of Houston or Los Angeles it's almost like an enclave within Saudi Arabia it it's it's it's it's different from the rest of the country yes that's true because it it kept a lot of the American ways yes of course but are good ways there's nothing wrong with is where there are excellent ways but I was so surprised to see the culture there because for instance I saw men and women working side by side I saw women driving cars there which you don't see it's not strange not strange to him he's a product of that culture having risen through the ranks he started out as a 12-year-old office boy in 1947 when it was said that to get oil all you needed to do was ladle it out of the sand it was never that easy according to aramco CEO Juma it takes a lot of effort the oil is a gift from God the recovery of oil is really the work of men and this is part of it here here in this room AR ramco Engineers are making sure that not one drop of oil is overlooked these computers are receiving data via satellite from sensors mounted on drill bits that are borrowing deep into the oil fields all over Saudi Arabia the engineers are sending im's instant messages that actually guide the drill bits he is now directing that Drillbit to go into the best areas of the reservoirs and suck that oil o from it and not leave any oil behind so in other words this drill bits like a snake doesn't go like that it would go down and then follow where the oil is absolutely and mind you this is happening 400 to 500 miles from here geographically and we are sending that drill bit also to or three miles uh in the ground Aluma says with this technology they're able to recover 10 times more oil than before but Global demand is dwindling even Americans the world's leading gas guzzlers are buying Less in the last 10 months um Americans drove 78 billion fewer miles than they did in the 10 months last year same 10 months um this is quite a dramatic decrease in driving to put it in in better numbers I think your uh consumption dropped by a million barrels is is there a a thinking that this decrease in demand might be permanent uh no no he says the US is Saudi Arabia's number one customer and the question is what will a ramco do to keep it that way one thing is discourage the move toward electric cars by trying to alleviate our concerns about the environment they showed us their new $4 million experimental combustion engine which they hope will increase gas mileage while it lowers CO2 emissions what we want to see is that there is an emphasis on also making this oil Greener and making the fossil fuels in general uh Greener because they're going to be with us for the long hole let me be one yeah okay and ask you to be candid is it Ram CO's hope to prevent uh a switch away from oil somebody said the country is the oil business I mean you absolutely need to do this for for your own Survival and what's wrong with that well I didn't say anything was wrong with it but it's a fact you you'd admit it's a fact yeah we admit a fact that yes this is we depend on the oil industry we wanted to help us you know to develop our economy and to develop the economy of the world so what is good for the wellbeing of Saudi Arabia should be good for the wellbeing of the world too so there's nothing wrong with that and so what do you say to people out there like Al Gore and and now Mr Obama that want say we have to devote ourselves devote ourselves to to reducing our dependence on oil my answer to this is we have to be realistic we don't have the alternatives to today if there are alternatives be my guest and come and bring them in but they are not there you're saying whatever the world does in terms of wind nuclear coal we're still going to need oil you're still and a it to need oil and and a lot of it politicians use this all the time that we're addicted addicted to foreign oil and addiction has a dark connotation because if you're addicted there's suggest question that there's a drug dealer who's trying to keep you hooked there it's in the air that you want to keep us hooked there is nothing addictive about uh oil if you look back 100 years what would the world be without it even President Bush who an oil man even he has said we're addicted to this and we have to get off this oil but listen to what the profess say and what do they advise it's not going to happen today it's not going to happen 10 years from now it's probably not going to happen 20 years from now it's not going to happen 30 years from now okay because you're still going to be using fossil fuels rather than oil pushers the Saudi see themselves as good Global Citizens who are trying to save the world from a catastrophic oil shortage but as oil Minister Al naimi told us the kingdom is hedging its bets we in Saudi Arabia are developing solar energy solar energy yes you're doing research in solar energy yes where else is the solar energy the most intense the desert the desert of course but won't that hurt your oil industry no no no not at all it will supplement it our vision is that we will be exporters of gws of electricity we will be exporting both okay and what was barrels of oil and uh gwatt of power and so he says the kingdom will still be in the energy business long after the sun sets on the age of oil

Channel: CBS

Views: 144,472

Keywords: 60, Minutes, Lesley, Stahl, Saudi, Aramco, Crude, Oil, Arabia, Production, Petroleum

Id: D1t4ue-WmlU

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 07 2008