Evelyn Lara-Mason
Week 2 Milestone: Saudi Aramco
Saudi Aramco, first known in 1933 as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC) is a company who has developed and transformed over time from the position of a subsidiary to the Standard Oil Company of California Company to a 100 percent owned Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, since 1980 (Our history, 2022, Ch 1). Their power today with oil is due to their great determination to embark in a direction that has forever changed the economic status of Saudi Arabia. Aramco’s advantage comes from looking to a future of being more than just a barrel producing and selling entity. Saudi Aramco’s ability to diversify through investing and technological advancements has allowed them to be the supplier, owner, and investor in new innovations of energy that keep them ahead of the game (Our history, 2022) (Crude oil, 2022).
The increasing demand for Saudi Aramco to produce oil comes after losing Russia in the market of exporting oil. (Bove, 2022) While Saudi Aramco is being used to utilize and take on the weight for exporting oil for much of the oil market, the prices of a barrel of crude oil increased by huge rates (Aramco Announces, 2022). Since 2019 the Real Gross Domestic Product went from 1% to 2.4 in 2022 and is expected to grow to 2.7 % by 2024 (Country Forecast, 2022).
In this I can’t help but to consider the reference of Revelation 6:6, states, “And I heard something like a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius (a day’s wages), and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” (Amplified Bible). In great times as these, the rise of oil and inflation indeed has me wondering if this is a sign where price for food amounts to money made from wages. leaving many without.
References
Aramco announces first quarter 2022 results. (2022) Aramco. Dhahran https://www.aramco.com/en/news-media/news/2022/aramco-announces-first-quarter-2022-results#:~:text=The%20Saudi%20Arabian%20Oil%20Company,Initial%20Public%20Offering%20in%202019
Bove, T. (2022, March 21) The world’s biggest oil company just doubled its profits, and now it’s planning to produce even more. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2022/03/21/saudi-aramco-2021-profits-oil-production/
Crude oil (2022) Trading economics. Stats. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil
Our history: Driven by the curiosity to explore. Chapter 1, The birth of Arabian Oil (2022) Aramco. https://www.aramco.com/en/who-we-are/overview/our-history#
Hey there, Evelyn
Thank you for your post. It is sure interesting to see the correlation with inflation, war in the eastern Europe, the increase of international and national travel to the increase of the profits for these oil companies. I recently had a conversation with a stock investor, he said "oil companies are the most profitable companies at this current time." The question becomes, is it benefiting the US or is it harming it? In CA, citizens were paying an average of $6.10 per gallon. I would say that even though these companies are doing well, it is not for the benefit of most.