In 1933, shortly after Saudi Arabia was unified, the government granted a concession to Standard Oil of California who recognised the potential of oil as a valuable export commodity and a source of revenue to begin building the nation.

Standard Oil of California, the parent company of Chevron, was joined later by several other major oil companies and the venture became known as Aramco – the Arabian American Oil Company.
In 1938, after five long years of exploration, oil was discovered in commercial volume when a well named Dammam Number 7, near today’s headquarters in Dhahran, began to flow – and ushered in a new era for Saudi Arabia.
Things moved quickly, and in 1939 King Abdul Aziz visited Ras Tanura to inaugurate the first shipload of Saudi crude oil ever exported.  The young Kingdom was now officially launched into the international petroleum industry.

1933 Saudi Arabia grants oil concession to California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), an affiliate of Standard Oil of California (Socal, today’s Chevron). Oil prospecting begins on the kingdom’s east coast. Sheikh Abdullah Al Sulaiman, the Saudi Arabian Minister of Finance, and lawyer and land-lease expert Lloyd Hamilton, acting on behalf of Standard Oil Company of California, sign the agreement that opens Saudi Arabia to oil exploration
1936 Texas Company (known as Texaco, now part of Chevron) acquires a 50 per cent interest in Socal’s concession.
1938 The kingdom’s first commercial oilfield is discovered at Dhahran. Crude is exported by barge to Bahrain.
1939 The first tanker load of petroleum is exported.
1944 Casoc changes its name to Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco).
1945 Ras Tanura Refinery begins operations.
1948 Standard Oil of New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum Oil (both now ExxonMobil) join Socal and Texaco as owners of Aramco.
1950 The 1,700 km Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) is completed, linking Eastern Province oilfields to Lebanon and the Mediterranean.
1951 Safaniya field, the world’s largest offshore oilfield, is discovered.
1956 Aramco confirms scale of Ghawar and Safaniya, the world’s largest oilfield and largest offshore field, respectively.
1961 Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) – propane and butane – is first processed at Ras Tanura and shipped to customers.
1966 Tankers begin calling at “Sea Island,” a new offshore crude oil loading platform off Ras Tanura.
1973 Saudi Arabia’s government acquires a 25 per cent participation interest in Aramco.
1975 The master gas system (MGS) project is launched.
1980 The Saudi government acquires a 100 per cent participation interest in Aramco, purchasing almost all of the company’s assets.
1981 East-West Pipelines, built for Aramco’s natural gas liquids (NGL) and crude oil, link the Eastern Province with Yanbu on Red Sea.
1982 Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center (Expec) opens in Dhahran.
1984 The company acquires its first four supertankers.
1987 East-West Crude Oil Pipeline expansion is completed, boosting capacity to 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd).
1988 Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or Saudi Aramco, is established.
1989 High-quality oil and gas is discovered south of Riyadh, the first find outside the company’s original operating area. Saudi Aramco and Texaco launch the Star Enterprise refining and marketing venture.
1991 The company plays a major role combating the Gulf oil spill.
1992 East-West Crude Oil Pipeline capacity is boosted to five million bpd. Saudi Aramco affiliate purchases 35 per cent interest in SsangYong Oil Refining Company (now S-Oil Corporation) of the Republic of Korea.
1993 Saudi Aramco takes charge of the kingdom’s domestic refining, marketing, distribution and joint-venture refining interests.
1994 Maximum sustained crude-oil production capacity is returned to 10 million bpd. The company acquires a 40 per cent equity interest in Petron, the largest refiner in the Philippines.
1995 The company completes a programme to build 15 very large crude carriers. Saudi Aramco President and CEO Ali Al Naimi is named the Kingdom’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
1996 Saudi Aramco acquires 50 per cent of Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries and Avinoil. It also assumes controlling interest in two Jeddah-based lubricants companies, now known as Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Company (Luberef) and Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company (Petrolube).
1998 Saudi Aramco, Texaco and Shell establish Motiva Enterprises, a major refining and marketing joint venture in the southern and eastern US.
1999 Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud inaugurates the Shaybah field in the Rub’ Al Khali desert, one of the largest projects of its kind in the world goes on stream.
 The Dhahran-Riyadh-Qasim multi-product pipeline and the Ras Tanura Upgrade project are completed.
 The second Saudi Aramco-Mobil lubricating oil refinery (Luberef II) in Yanbu  commences operations.
2000 Petroleum Intelligence Weekly ranks the company No 1 in the world for the 11th straight year, based on the kingdom’s crude oil reserves and production.
 Aramco Gulf Operations is established to assume management of the government’s petroleum interest in the Offshore Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
 New facilities are under construction in the Haradh and Hawiyah gas plant projects to process gas for delivery to the Master Gas System and on to domestic markets.
 The company’s dynamic new logo is launched to usher in a new era of progress in the new millennium.
2001 The Hawiyah Gas Plant, capable of processing up to 1.6 billion standard cubic feet per day of non-associated gas, comes on stream.
2003 The Haradh Gas Plant is completed two-and-a-half months ahead of schedule.
2004  Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, First Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the National Guard, inaugurates the 800,000 barrel-per-day Qatif-Abu Sa’fah Producing Plants mega project. In addition to the crude, the plants provide 370 million standard cubic feet of associated gas daily.
2005  Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo  Chemical sign an agreement for the development of a large, integrated refining and petrochemical complex in the Red Sea town of Rabigh, on Saudi Arabia’s west coast.
 Ras Tanura marks 60 years of operations. 
2006  Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical break ground on PetroRabigh, an integrated refining/petrochemical project.
Haradh III is completed, yielding 300,000 bpd of oil.
Accords are signed for two export refineries — Jubail (with Total) and in Yanbu (with ConocoPhillips).