Kingdom and in jointly owned refineries abroad, and our gas exploration and production program. Recognizing that capacity is needed throughout the entire oil value chain to keep crude and products markets balanced at all times, we are doing our part in the drive to increase and upgrade refining and related capacities worldwide. To this end, we have entered into two grassroots refinery joint ventures, one each on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea and Gulf Coasts, totaling 800 thousand barrels per day of capacity, in addition to some 200 thousand barrels per day of capacity additions and upgrades in our existing in-Kingdom refineries. These, projects along with planned investments with our partners to expand and upgrade our joint venture refineries in Asia and the United States will add around two million barrels per day to global refining capacity by 2012-constituting around one third of planned worldwide capacity additions. Further downstream, we are integrating world-scale petrochemicals manufacturing with our key refineries. The Rabigh joint venture being developed in partnership with Sumitomo Chemical of Japan is making rapid progress. Another similar project is being considered for the Ras Tanura Refinery on the Kingdom's East Coast, which would be the largest of its kind in the world. --More
