SNU has awarded Honorary Doctorate Degree of Philosophy to Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister of Saudi Arabia, Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi. Al-Nami gave a lecture to 400 of SNU students on oil investment project.

(Picture= SNU President Lee Jang Moo and Minister Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi)

The Minister said that Asian oil consumption was projected to increase by 20 million barrels per day by 2030, accounting for 60 percent of growth in world demand. He said, “Some 80 percent of this increase in demand will be met by supplies from the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia was carrying out investment projects, worth $90 billion, to boost oil and gas production capacity as well as refining facilities. The short-term oil price gyrations seen in recent years are more closely tied to the internal logic of the financial markets than to underlying supply/demand fundamentals.

Minister Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi has been minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources since August 1995. Prior to being named minister with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he had served as chief executive officer of Saudi Aramco for seven years. Minister Al-Naimi has spent his career in energy exploration and production with Saudi Aramco, beginning in 1947 as a foreman, and going on through the ranks as an assistant superintendent, superintendent and manager, before moving into the Exploration Department in 1953, to work as a geologist and later as hydrologist and geologist. He worked in the Economics and Public Relations Department and Abqaiq Producing Division at Aramco from 1967 until 1969, and was appointed vice president of Aramco in 1975, senior vice president in 1978 and was elected Aramco director in 1980. He became executive vice president of Operations for Aramco in 1982, and then company president in 1984. He then became chief executive officer for Aramco in 1988.

Minister Al-Naimi studied at the International College and the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, from 1956 until 1963, then in 1962 achieved a B.Sc. in Geology from Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., and a M.S. degree in Geology from Stanford University, U.S.A., in 1963.

May 15, 2008
SNU PR Office