• Saudi Aramco is likely to be worth well over $1tn (£685bn). At that level it would be worth more than Apple, ExxonMobil and Facebook added together.
• The world’s largest oil and gas company was originally formed in 1933, with the involvement of Standard Oil of California – now known as Chevron.
• The group was part-nationalised in 1950 and its headquarters moved from New York to Dharan in Saudi Arabia. Aramco was fully taken into state hands 30 years later where it has jealously and secretly guarded the country’s 260bn barrels worth of oil reserves, which are rich and easy to produce.
• Officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Aramco oversees dozens of oil fields, including the world’s largest onshore one, Ghawar, but also offshore in the Safaniya location.
• It also manages several gas fields as well as refining, marketing and distribution operations all over the world. The company, which has a technology research office in Aberdeen, has around 60,000 employees – 10,000 of them expats.
