Aramco ‘looking for up to $80bn’ spending abroad

Saudi Aramco is expanding in refining and petrochemicals and seeking to boost ties with Asia as part of its ambition to become both the world’s largest oil and chemicals producer by the end of the decade. Last year, it bought a $2bn stake in S-Oil Corp, South Korea’s third-largest oil refiner

Bloomberg/DubaiSaudi Arabian Oil Co, the world’s largest oil exporter, is planning to spend between $70bn and $80bn on overseas acquisitions and investments during the next five years, three people with knowledge of the matter said.The investment is part of the state-owned company’s target of spending $150bn at home and internationally through 2019, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Saudi Aramco, as the company is known, will focus on Asia, particularly China and Korea, they said.Saudi Aramco is expanding in refining and petrochemicals and seeking to boost ties with Asia as part of its ambition to become both the world’s largest oil and chemicals producer by the end of the decade. Last year, it bought a $2bn stake in S-Oil Corp, South Korea’s third-largest oil refiner.The company has joint-venture plants in China, owns stakes in refining businesses in South Korea, Japan and the US and markets its crude and refined products globally.Aramco secured a $10bn loan in March that could be used to fund potential acquisitions, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg at the time. The company didn’t respond to requests for comment.The Saudi state-owned oil company reduced its borrowing costs when it used the new $10bn facility to replace a $4bn facility, the company said in a later statement confirming the deal. That was despite the drop in oil prices.Falling energy prices and low borrowing costs have sparked a wave of consolidation in the oil and gas sector. Mergers and acquisitions activity in the energy industry rose 58% to $355bn in 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.The fall in oil prices has made some upstream assets more attractive to buy, Saif al-Falasi, chief executive officer at Emirates National Oil Co, said in April. The company is bidding to buy the 46% of London-traded producer Dragon Oil that it doesn’t already own, the company said in March.Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co, known as Kufpec, may increase the size of a $1bn loan to $2.5bn, three people with knowledge of the matter said in March.