Saudi Aramco to open new research center

Saudi Aramco today broke ground on the construction of a brand new, state-of-the-art research center, at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), with an expected completion date of mid-2019.

 The ground breaking ceremony was attended by H.E. Ali I. Al Naimi, former Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and Chairman of KAUST Board of Trustees; H.E. Khalid Al Falih, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, Chairman of Saudi Aramco and Vice-Chairman of KAUST Board of Trustees; Amin H. Nasser, President and CEO of Saudi Aramco; Prof. Jean-Lou Chameau, KAUST President; and several government, academic and business dignitaries.

 The facility will allow Saudi Aramco to leverage its unique position within the R&D ecosystem at KAUST to accelerate the implementation of the company’s Technology Strategy. The facility will include laboratories and offices to support research in the areas of chemicals, intelligent systems, solar energy, reservoir engineering, computational modeling, and environmental protection.

 The new center will be an 11,300 square meter research facility, housing 132 scientists and researchers, aimed at supporting Saudi Aramco’s upstream and downstream research domains as well as environmental protection research efforts.