Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi, right, with Muhammad Bakr, president of MIT Club of Saudi Arabia, at the seventh annual meeting of the MIT alumni held in Riyadh late on Tuesday night. (AN photo)

RIYADH, 7 April 2005 — Saudi Arabia might manage to increase its crude reserves by 200 billion barrels to its existing 261 billion barrels, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi was quoted by the Saudi Press Agency as saying.

“There is a possibility that the Kingdom will increase its reserves by around 200 billion barrels, either through new finds or by increasing what it produces from existing fields,” Al-Naimi said at an annual meeting of graduates of the Saudi branch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Saudi Arabia already holds the world’s largest oil reserves.

“These huge reserves enable the Kingdom to remain a major oil producer for between 70 and 100 years, even if it raises its production capacity to 15 million barrels per day, which may well happen during the next 15 years,” Al-Naimi said.

Al-Naimi also underlined the importance of the pioneering role played by the oil-based industry in developing Saudi business and economy and expected its further growth in the coming years due to the expansion of oil and gas exploration.

He said Saudi Arabia doubled its gas production capacity from three to seven billion cubic feet daily. He also underlined his country’s keenness on the stability of the world oil market and forging close working relations based on proper economic principles, with oil producing states, in particular OPEC members, and oil consumers.

Al-Naimi said the private sector is going to prosper as oil and gas exploration is rapidly expanding. His ministry has already formed a new specialized company which will be eventually handed over on BOT basis to the private sector for operation and management.

“Saudi Arabia has the fourth largest gas reserves in the world,” Al-Naimi said.

About Saudi investment in the oil industry, Al-Naimi disclosed that the Kingdom tends to increase its investments in the industry. “The Kingdom had offered to build two large oil refineries in the US. Yet until today our American friends have not responded to our offer,” Al-Naimi said.

“The Kingdom is considering investment in building refineries in India, China and other countries,” Al-Naimi added.

The seventh annual meeting of the MIT alumni was attended by over 110 Saudi MIT graduates, academics, technocrats, economists and government officials. It was sponsored by Al-Eqtisadiah, a sister publication of Arab News.

The MIT Club of Saudi Arabia was established in 1998. From a modest start, its membership has steadily grown to over 80 members. Those members have MIT degrees in diverse disciplines and work in a variety of professions within Saudi Arabia.

The objective of the club is to foster social and intellectual interaction between members, promote leadership programs in business and technology in Saudi Arabia, and support programs at MIT that promote cultural tolerance and understanding.

The MIT Club has become known for setting a new tradition for civil societies by working to give a larger role to university graduates and academics to serve their country, said Muhammad Bakr, president of the club.

The club organizes symposiums and forums for academics, businessmen, industrialists and government officials where they discuss various topics and issues of public interest and concerns. A recent function was attended by a number of prominent numbers of the Shoura Council, Supreme Economic Council and business and industrial communities.

MIT admitted its first students in 1865. The institute is independent, coeducational, and privately endowed. Its five schools and one college encompass 34 academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programs, as well as numerous interdisciplinary centers, laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditional departmental boundaries.

Fifty-nine current or former members of the MIT community have won the Nobel Prize. They include 24 professors, 23 alumni, 14 researchers and one staff physician. Twenty-six of the Nobel Prizes are in physics, eleven in chemistry, twelve in economics, eight in medicine/physiology, and two in peace. Eight Nobel prizes were won by researchers who helped develop radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory.