While growing up in Saudi, I distinctly remember one feature of the compounds that I have never encountered anywhere else: snack bars. No matter which compounds you were on: Dhahran, Abqaiq, Ras Tanura, or Udhailiyah, the snack bar was the stop in town to catch a tasty meal after swimming or an afterschool sport.
These are the wishes my wife Amira and I hope to share with each of you in October when so many of our Aramco annuitant friends will board together for the upcoming Hafla Cruise.
By the late 1970s, Ali Al-Baluchi had risen through Aramco’s Community Services to become Manager of the Food Distribution Department, where he was proud to employ one of the company’s first Saudi female employees. The following extract from Heart and Soul details how this opened a door to further training in the United States.
A Saudi shopping mall was on fire Friday engulfed in smoke after a blaze broke out in the early hours of the morning. Plumes of smoke could be seen billowing from the Mall of Dhahran in Alkhobar — the largest commercial market in the Eastern Province — as emergency crews battled to contain the fire.
Brenda Neal, Aramco 1979-1986, will celebrate her 72nd birthday on June 8th. Brenda lived in Dhahran with her family. She worked as a Resource Analyst in a Community Services Department. Her husband, Gary Neal, worked for Aramco as an Engineer. Gary passed away in 2016.
Brian and Susan Bahr are pleased to announce the graduations of daughter Victoria (Tori) Bahr and son Xander Bahr. Both children were born in Saudi Arabia. Brian worked for Aramco from 1992 to 2009.
Kayla Vivian Otoo, an 8th Grader with the Dhahran School and a member of the BSA Dhahran Troop One Scouting Program earned her Eagle Scouting Rank on 5/10/2022. Kayla Otoo joined the Scouting Program in the 6th Grade and has been working alongside other scouts for the past few years.
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.
Some 50 countries exhibited in Expo 2020 Dubai’s Sustainability District, which centered on the slanted oval of Terra—the Sustainability Pavilion. Two other themed districts—Opportunity and Mobility—comprised three “petals” of the expo’s nearly five square kilometers. Along walkways leading to the district’s entry portals, designers inscribed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 by 193 countries of the United Nations.
In this piece, Mark Lowey, “Abu Jack,” is escorted deep into the Rub Al Khali (Empty Quarter) to meet, for the first time, the son of an old acquaintance.
Ziad T. Al Murshed has been appointed as chief financial officer and senior vice president of Strategy and Development effective May 1, 2022. Previous to this, Al Murshed was acting service line head for Finance, Strategy & Development effective Aug. 6, 2021.
As Ali Al-Baluchi worked hard to establish his credentials within the Aramco workforce, opportunities to study overseas began to arrive. With his cordial personality and winning Saudi charm, Ali quickly formed friendships wherever he went, and even found himself representing the Kingdom in international student forums.
February has always been a busy month at Aramco. Whether that is recognizing some of the bests of the previous year or launching new enterprises or new construction projects, the cool breezes of winter spurring us into action.
Please don't miss the boat. As our Hafla host writes to friends, "I hope that many of you who have not registered for the 2022 Hafla Cruise will do so early this week. It will be our first significant 'get-to-gather' in four years, and we do not want to forget our Aramco friends. We all lived, worked, and played together for many years.
Ali Al-Baluchi was born in the Arabian Peninsula soon after the unification of the Saudi kingdom. Against the backdrop of a conservative society confronting a rapidly increasing pace of modernization, he has witnessed and participated in decades of great social and economic change.
In early March, I had the pleasure of guiding the first-ever birdwatching tour of Saudi Arabia. The visit was organized by BirdTour Asia, one of the most preeminent companies catering to international birders in the region. Over the course of our six-day itinerary, the tour leaders, James Eaton and Rob Hutchinson, their British and American clients, and I recorded almost 170 species, 18 of which can only be found in Saudi Arabia or the wider region.
Day in and day out, our people show their commitment to delivering energy that the world needs, and even during the holy month of Ramadan, when many of our employees are fasting, that commitment never wavers. This work is crucial, making Aramco one of the most reliable suppliers of energy to the world, and an engine to the Kingdom’s economy.
This 25-centimeter alabaster disk, dating from the Akkadian period around 2300 BCE, shows what appears to be a temple ritual. Its principal figure is the woman second from left, who is identified on the reverse in Sumerian cuneiform characters that name her en hedu-anna, high priestess-ornament of heaven, wife of the god Nanna and daughter of the Akkadian King Sargon. It was found by English archeologist Sir Leonard Wooley in the mid-1920s.
The Holy month of Ramadan is the 9th month in the Hijri calendar. Since the Islamic year is 11 days shorter than the western Gregorian calendar, Ramadan moves ‘forward’ by that amount each year in comparison to our western months, making Ramadan, quite literally, a moveable feast!
Ali Al-Baluchi was born in the Arabian Peninsula soon after the unification of the Saudi kingdom. Against the backdrop of a conservative society confronting a rapidly increasing pace of modernization, he has witnessed and participated in decades of great social and economic change.