Week 36 in Review: Retirements, a continuing Hydrocarbon Journey, and ready or not, school’s back in session.

Here’s a look back at some of the top stories of the past week.

Abdullah M. Al-Ghamdi retires after 37 years

“It was a lifetime job, so Aramco means everything to me. Aramco took me as a fresh graduate from college.,” said Abdullah M. Al-Ghamdi, who recently retired as vice president of Gas Operations at Aramco. “The company gave me the opportunity to have a very colorful and exciting career, like a tapestry.”

He started his career with the company in 1983 as a participant in the summer student program for two summers before receiving a degree in electrical engineering in 1984 from King Saud University in Riyadh.

And in all the years in between, Al-Ghamdi noted: “From my experience over 36 years, I have always witnessed the company going into transformation.”

Nabil K. Al-Dabal steps down, praises Aramco’s world-class development

Nabil K. Al-Dabal, vice president of Human Resources (HR), praised Aramco’s efforts on employee development on his retirement from the company. Al-Dabal was recently honored by corporate management at a ceremony at the company's headquarters in Dhahran. 

“While I am very proud of all that we have accomplished, I hope that I am best remembered for developing and supporting our next generation of employees and leaders,” said Al-Dabal, who, as vice president of HR, was responsible for providing strategic leadership to all workforce planning, staffing, leadership and professional development, compensation and benefits, organization consulting, performance management, diversity and inclusion, retirees’ services, and labor relations to over 67,000 employees from 91 different nationalities.

“Saudi Arabia has been blessed with many natural resources, however, our greatest natural resource is our people,” he concluded. 

The Aramco Hydrocarbon Journey: Extraction

Alongside the diligence of ongoing maintenance of wellheads such as those found in the Southern Area and in the Abqaiq area, there is cutting-edge thinking and technology. Wellheads feed live processing data into a remote terminal unit, which in turn feeds data into nerve centers at the GOSPs.

Through a convergence of software, hardware and communication infrastructure, multitudes of electronic monitoring eyes watch for integrity issues like voids in the piping, tubing or casing, as well as flow parameters.

Energy efficiency are among the improvements at Southern Area Oil Operations (SAOO), whose admin area also spearheaded Aramco’s 1 Million Trees Initiative along with Community Services and Environmental Protection. 

Better focus on energy targets through digital transformation 

One more digital transformation initiative was recently added to the long list of technologies that Aramco employs in its continuous pursuit of excellence.

The Process and Control Systems Department, in collaboration with the Hawiyah Gas Plant Department (HGPD), recently celebrated the piloting of an advanced energy demand forecasting solution that helps set improved energy targets for industrial facilities, thereby enhancing performance. 

It is another tool that our facilities can use to manage energy consumption, and thereby support our company’s effort toward de-carbonization, said Walid A. Al Naeem, acting manager of Aramco’s Process and Control Systems Department.

Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare's Back-to-School guide: Are you ready?

From backpacks to lunchboxes to protecting your child against COVID-19, JHAH offers up a short checklist for parents and students headed back to school.