Saudi Arabia is pressing ahead with its ambitious oil expansion scheme and stepping up exploration to meet future demand, the head of state Saudi Aramco said.

The kingdom has plans in train to boost production capacity from 11 million barrels per day (bpd) to 12.5 million bpd by 2009. It has been pumping about 9.5 million bpd of crude for months running.
"Everything is on track," said Abdullah Jum'ah, Chief Executive and President of Saudi Aramco.
"Whatever we pro-mised, we are going to deliver. It's on budget and on track," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
And the kingdom's exploration efforts would be stepped up to meet future oil demand.
"I think given the demand...that will be placed on us, it's only natural that we would," said Jum'ah.
Some 300,000 bpd of new Arab Light crude production is due onstream from the Haradh oilfield by April.
Riyadh is also making progress on two new export refineries planned for the kingdom.
Jum'ah said Saudi Aramco would soon make an announcement on the refineries, which will have 400,000 bpd of capacity each.
Saudi Arabia will continue to bolster its output capacity to quell global shortages, but has "concerns" about the Bush administration's call to cut its addiction to Middle East oil, the kingdom's petroleum minister said.
Saudi Arabia plans to boost production capacity from 11 million barrels per day to 12.5 million bpd by 2009.
"We will continue to be a source of stability for world energy markets," Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi told an energy conference hosted by Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "We are addressing the problem of availability head-on."
But, when asked if there were plans to boost capacity beyond 12.5 million bpd, Naimi made a reference to President George W Bush's State of the Union pledge to slash US oil imports from Middle East suppliers by 75 per cent by 2025.
"What concerns us is all the talk about not wanting our oil," Naimi said. "It's not a major bump; it's something to take into consideration."
Head of the International Energy Agency, Claude Mandil, the West's energy watchdog, said that Bush's call to cut Middle East oil imports would not help persuade Opec to spend the huge amounts of cash needed to meet future oil demand.