Saudi Arabian Oil Company, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, will hold its board meeting in Seoul later this week, its local unit said Tuesday, with top Saudi Arabian government officials and business leaders to attend the annual gathering.
It is the second time that the state-run oil giant, also known as Saudi Aramco, will hold its annual board meeting in South Korea, the world’s fifth-largest crude importer, following the first in 2011.
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Aramco CEO Khalid Al-Falih, and nine other high-ranking company officials, arrived in the nation earlier in the day, and will attend the board meeting slated for Thursday, according to S-Oil Corp.
Aramco is the largest shareholder of S-Oil, South Korea’s No. 3 oil refiner, with a 63.4 percent stake. In January, Aramco bought 2 trillion won ($1.8 billion) worth of S-Oil stock from Hanjin Group, which sold off the shares as part of its moves to bolster its financial footing.
On Wednesday, the top officials also plan to visit S-Oil’s factory currently under construction in Ulsan, the country’s oil refinery hub located 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and are scheduled to have meetings with government officials and business leaders as well, according to industry sources.
Their visit comes at a time when Seoul has been seeking ways to expand economic ties with the Middle East for closer cooperation in energy and construction projects.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with the Aramco chief on the sidelines of the 2014 World Economic Forum in Switzerland, during which the two sides discussed ways to step up cooperation in the oil industry.
South Korea heavily relies on crude oil produced in the Middle East with its imports from Saudi Arabia accounting for 34 percent of the total, according to the state-run Korea National Oil Corporation.
Global crude prices have rallied some 30 percent from a six-year low in March on signs that idle U.S. drilling rigs are spurring a production slowdown that may ease a global supply glut.
However, increased production from the world’s No. 1 crude exporter has sparked concerns of a feeble recovery.
Naimi, who has held the powerful oil minister post for two decades, played a key role when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries refused to cut its supply during a meeting in November in a price war with U.S. shale producers, leaving oil prices more than halved between June and January. (Yonhap)
