Today, I have the honor of sharing one of the most thrilling and heartwarming stories I’ve heard in a very long time, one that made me feel nostalgic, curious, and hopeful all at the same time.
On March 4, 1938, “Lucky 7” started producing and Saudi Arabia was launched on its journey to become the world’s largest oil producing nation. Or so runs the widely accepted version of history. But the two years after Lucky 7 were incredibly difficult. The author reveals three major events the early employees had to overcome in those critical years.
Aramco Brat and pilot, Captain Miki Dykes took part from the skies in the 7-day road cycling UAE Tour stage race held from February 21 - 27, 2021 in the United Arab Emirates. The 2021 race was the third edition of the UAE Tour, 'The one and only world tour race in the middle east,' and the first race of the 2021 UCI Cycling World Tour.
Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s longest-serving oil minister and the man behind the oil embargo after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, has died in London at the age of 90. Yamani became oil minister in 1962, replacing Abdullah Tariki, a founding member of OPEC.
It’s easy to think of blue as a naturally pervasive color. It’s all around us in clear skies and bodies of water. Yet elsewhere blue appears infrequently, coloring only a handful of minerals and less than 10 percent of flowering plants.
AramcoWorld, Saudi Aramco's flagship publication, is widely recognized as a leading source of nonpolitical coverage of the history, geography, arts and cultures of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and the wider Islamic world, with an emphasis on the interweavings of the plural cultures of East and West, past and present.
Umaima's wedding preparations had begun not long after her Nikkah which was held in the first half of the year in the month of May. After her Nikkah ceremony, from June until the end of November her dowry was collected. As the month of December started the wedding festivities begun.
Ali Al-Baluchi’s memoir offers a rare Saudi insight into the development of his home community as it paralleled the growth of the world’s largest energy company, and the forging of an international community of Aramcons.
This small collection of verses was written as a poetic diary of my thoughts and impressions, influenced by my life and travel within Saudi Arabia during the past eight years (circa 1980s), intending, hopefully, for them to be handed on...
Quriyan M. Al Hajri’s knowledge of the desert is legendary. So, when the retired Aramco well sites supervisor invited me to join him for a five-day, 120-kilometer desert trek from his home near Ain Dar up to his birthplace near the historic village of Thaj, I was intrigued.
When expatriates describe their experiences to the less traveled, it often starts with food. In Saudi Arabia, because the traditional cuisine is so minimalist — spare, unpretentious fare derived mainly from ancient nomadic bedouin culinary habits — only two items come quickly to mind: kabsah and sweet tea.
"This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive." ~ Alice Waters. Syed Abdul Qader, Badge #142674, invited a few old friends for lunch. We gathered at his residence.
The annual Al Janandriyah camel festival had been held near Riyadh since 1985 but we never knew exactly when. Every spring, we waited in anticipation for rumors of when the races would run and more importantly what day in the two-week festival would be allocated for expat families to attend. That was the tricky bit.
If you turn on the radio anywhere in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia, you’ll probably stumble upon the latest Billboard hits on Studio 1 FM, or an intriguing new beat on the World Music Show on Studio 2 FM.
In a small shop in Casablanca in 2013, Jannis Stürtz dropped a needle on a vintage vinyl recording of Fadoul, one of Morocco’s most-popular musicians of the 1970s. What he heard next was “a mighty voice and a raw sound” that Stürtz, a Berlin-based DJ and music producer, found “enormously inspiring.”
The monthly progress meeting of Saudi Aramco Ex-Employees Association (SAEEA) was held on February 13, 2021 at Faran Club, Karachi.
Yanbu’ is a pleasant coastal city, which is growing as a tourist destination. Many take advantage of its warm climate, enjoying diving and snorkelling in the Red Sea. The rich seabed and white sandy beaches attract people from all over the country.
I have twice had the pleasure of visiting Jeddah, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia. The first was a scuba diving trip with two work mates in 2007, and, again nine years later, with my wife, Ann, shortly before retiring from Aramco in 2016.
4491-B. Our house. Ours was one among 12 identical and nondescript single-story dwellings in two linear strings of six duplexes each directly facing each other in our immediate neighborhood, like opposing armies in a battlefield diagram.
Changing school for the Grade 11/Year 12 is a popular choice for teenagers and their families, particularly for expat children when joining a boarding school is a step towards independence, gaining confidence and a stepping-stone to university.