London: The boss of French energy giant Total has revealed plans to invest in gas filling stations across Saudi Arabia.
He was speaking on a panel with the Kingdom’s finance and economy ministers as well as the chief of Morgan Stanley at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“I am investing in Saudi Arabia — heavily,” said Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne.
“We will announce in the coming days that together with Saudi Aramco we will establish a retail network in Saudi Arabia.”
Earlier this month, Aramco said it was establishing a domestic fuel retailing subsidiary as part of the national oil company’s drive to expand beyond crude oil production into downstream businesses.
The new firm, Saudi Aramco Retail Co, would create a network of filling stations within Saudi Arabia to sell automotive fuels, Aramco said last week, without giving details of the size, cost or time-frame for the network.
In April, Aramco said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Total to evaluate the feasibility of jointly buying a retail service station network in Saudi Arabia.
Last October, Aramco and Total signed an engineering and design contract for a $9 billion petrochemical complex in the Kingdom.
The Amiral complex will be able to produce 2.7 million tons of chemicals annually and is expected to be completed by early 2024.
