KUALA LUMPUR, June 12: Saudi Aramco, the world's single largest producer of crude oil, pledged Monday build up output and maintain a production surplus going forward so as to ensure stability in oil prices.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) president and chief executive officer Abdallah Jum’ah said the company already managed some 260 billion barrels of oil, or roughly a quarter of the world's reserves.

We continue to expand our reserves base and conservatively estimate our additional potential of recoverable oil to be in the range of 200 billion barrels, he told delegates at the Asia Oil and Gas conference here.

At Saudi Aramco's present production levels, that means we will have well over a century's worth of oil to produce, said Jum'ah, who spoke via a videophone link from Saudi Arabia.

He said Saudi Aramco would be expanding its production capacity over the next few years and sought to alleviate supply fears, which are one factor behind the current high oil prices, by pledging to maintain a surplus.

We will maintain a surplus production capacity of one and a half, to two million barrels a day, even as our actual production grows, said Jum'ah.

This surplus capability is expensive to develop and maintain, but over the years, it has repeatedly proven its worth and so we bear this cost to promote market stability and continual global economic development, he said.

Jum’ah said Saudi Aramco expected to expand production capacity by some three million barrels a day with the development of “half a dozen” major crude oil installations.

In other words, in the next five to six years we will be adding production capacity which exceeds the current production of Venezuela or Kuwait, he said.

Some of that capacity will offset maximum decline while the remainder will serve to expand our maximum sustainable production capability, which by the end of 2009, will reach 12 million barrels a day.—AFP