in my opinion, forever. Furthermore, because oil is a fungible commodity, measures to increase global energy security will be meaningless unless they include Asia and the Pacific as willing participants. "Surely, it would be much more productive to work together to address both the structural and cyclical challenges that we all confront. If we are to be successful in those efforts, we have to consider both the supply and the demand sides of the equation, recognize that both producers and consumers have important roles to play in tackling industry issues, and understand that today's market is the product of a complex interplay of factors that cannot be addressed with either simplistic solutions or isolated initiatives. "Instead, I believe we need a clear and comprehensive vision of the energy future, which will be made reality by advanced technology, dedicated people and good old-fashioned hard work. That is why at Saudi Aramco, we are doing our part to meet these various challenges through a series of major initiatives all along the petroleum value chain, using not only our own resources but also drawing upon the strengths of our world-class partners, many of them from the Far East. I would like to share some of those initiatives with you." "Our efforts begin with a stepped up oil and gas exploration program. We currently manage approximately 260 billion barrels of oil, or roughly a quarter of the global total. But we continue to expand our reserve base, and conservatively estimate our additional potential of recoverable oil to be in the range of 200 billion barrels. At Saudi Aramco's present production levels, that means we will have well over a century's worth of oil to produce. --MORE 13/06/2006 14:02 ت م
