Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with a drive to hunt for more crude and boost its proven oil resources although the Gulf Kingdom already controls nearly a quarter of the world's recoverable crude deposits, according to its state oil company.

Saudi Aramco is spearheading the programme to find more oil, expand existing reserves and boost the country's production and export capacity, said Abdulaziz Al Khayyal, Saudi Aramco Senior Vice President for Industrial Relations.

Addressing a university seminar in Tokyo this week, Al Khayyal said the programme would boost Saudi Arabia's oil output capacity to nearly 12 million barrels per day at the end of 2009 and allow it to maintain its traditional spare capacity of 1.5-2 million barrels per day to reassure global markets.

"As most of you know, Saudi Aramco manages the world's largest proven reserves of crude oil and its fourth largest concentration of natural gas reserves. Rather than rest on our laurels, however, we continue our efforts to discover and define additional quantities of both oil and gas, and to continue to bolster our reserves of these precious energy resources," he said.

"Despite our tremendous reserve base, we are pressing ahead with exploration programme, and are continuing to push the envelope when it comes to reservoir delineation and reservoir management activities, which help us to identify and produce additional hydrocarbon reserves within known fields."

Al Khayyal said the programme runs parallel to another major investment drive targeting the country's production and export terminal capacity with the aim of expanding Saudi Arabia's supply potential and meet future global demand.

"Again, rather than grow complacent with our status as the world's largest producer of crude oil, Saudi Aramco has continued to build new facilities and expanding assets, to maintain our ability to supply energy to the world. "By the end of next year, Saudi Aramco will have a maximum sustained crude oil production capability of 12 million barrels per day, which includes the 1.5 to two million barrels per day of spare capacity, which the Kingdom maintains in the interest of global market stability," he said.

"Our capacity expansion programme includes not only new wells and processing facilities, but also the pipelines and storage facilities needed to move that crude oil to market. We are also expanding our natural gas production capacity, in order to fuel future economic development and diversification in the Kingdom."

Turning to downstream plans, Al Khayyal said they include the addition of nearly 1.7 million bpd to Saudi Arabia's refining capacity inside and outside the Kingdom. The new projects are in participation with foreign partners and include mainly processing of heavy crude to bridge the gap in demand.

"In addition to the fact that such volumes will help to meet growing demand for refined products, much of that capacity will be geared toward processing heavier sour crudes, which will help to resolve the mismatch between refining assets and the global crude oil slate."

Al Khayyal did not specify the size of investments, but Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali Al Naeemi said the Kingdom is planning to pump nearly $129bn (Dh473bn) into hydrocarbon projects in five years.