London (Platts)--28May2013/750 am EDT/1150 GMT

Saudi Aramco boosted its crude production to a record 9.506 million b/d in 2012, excluding blended natural gas liquids, up 5% from 9.068 million b/d in 2011, the company said in its latest annual report.

"During 2012 at Saudi Aramco, we responded to market conditions by producing crude oil at the highest level in our company.s history," Aramco President and CEO Khalid al-Falih said in a forward to the report.

The Saudi company's crude exports last year rose to 6.888 million b/d, up 4% from 6.633 million b/d in 2011.

Asian customers once again constituted the biggest market for Aramco's crude, taking 53.2% of the total exports, down slightly from 54.7% the previous year.

Although US demand for imported crude is falling as its own production rises, Aramco increased shipments to the country last year, with the US accounting for 16.5% of total exports, up from 16%.

Aramco and Shell's Motiva joint venture in the US implemented a major expansion of its Port Arthur refinery last year, boosting total capacity to 600,000 b/d and making it the biggest refinery in North America.

Aramco's crude shipments to the Mediterranean last year rose to 7.4% from 7.1%. The company sent a further 5% of its crude exports to Europe, with the remaining 17.8% going to other markets.

Aramco said its crude production capacity was unchanged at 12 million b/d.

Saudi Arabia's total crude oil production capacity is officially estimated at 12.5 million b/d, including the kingdom's share of production from the neutral zone shared with Kuwait.

Neutral zone output is not included in Saudi Aramco's output figures. Aramco said its remaining crude and condensate reserves amounted to 260.2 billion barrels at the end of 2012, up marginally from 259.7 billion barrels a year earlier. The company's official reserves estimate has fluctuated only slightly around the 260 billion barrel level for several years.

In addition to crude oil, Aramco said it also produced 1.32 million b/d of natural gas liquids last year, up from 1.26 million b/d in 2011. The company exported 911,000 b/d of NGLs last year, almost unchanged from up 910,000 b/d a year earlier.

PRODUCT EXPORTS

Refined product exports were also almost flat at 344,000 b/d from 337,000 b/d in 2011.

As with crude, Asia was the biggest market for Aramco's refined products exports, taking 50.2% of the total.

A further 9.5% of product exports went to Europe, with 1.8% to the Mediterranean, 0.2% to the US and 38.2% to other markets.

Aramco is already a significant refiner, with around 1 million b/d of wholly owned refining capacity in Saudi Arabia and interests in a further 1.1 million b/d of capacity owned by domestic joint ventures. The company has stakes in refining joint ventures in the US, South Korea, Japan and China, giving it a total net global capacity of 2.4 million b/d.

Aramco is also involved in three new refinery projects in Saudi Arabia, one with China's Sinopec, one with France's Total and the third on its own.

Each of the new projects will be able to refine 400,000 b/d of crude, and Aramco said in its report that only three other refining projects on this scale had been commissioned anywhere in the world in the past 20 years.

Aramco Trading, which started operating at the beginning of 2012, traded 265 million barrels of refined products during the year, the company said in the report. The trading company, which in October assumed responsibility for domestic shipping functions, is focused on importing and exporting refined products and represented Aramco's interest in sales and purchases of products including condensate, naphtha, gasoline, middle distillates and fuel oil.

Alongside record crude production, Aramco also boosted natural gas output last year to 10.72 Bcf/d, up from 9.882 Bcf/d in 2011.

Recoverable gas reserves rose slightly to 284.8 Tcf from 282.6 Tcf. Saudi Arabia kicked off a program last year to explore the country's unconventional gas potential, and Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi last month outlined plans to drill around seven wells this year aimed at shale gas resources.

--Richard Swann, richard.swann@platts.com  --Edited by Jonathan Fox, jonathan.fox@platts.com

© 2013 Platts, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.  To subscribe or visit go to:  http://www.platts.com

http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Oil/26972208