ADP Program
Advancing Aramco’s talented knowledge seekers
Company’s Advanced Degree Program prepares young Saudi talents to tackle today and tomorrow’s challenges.
Delivering top-class academic opportunities for employees is a part of Aramco’s DNA.
Young Saudi talents continue to find themselves inspired, studying for masters or doctorate degrees at the world’s top-ranked universities, thanks to Aramco’s Advanced Degree Program (ADP), which is one of the development programs offered by the company to upskill its employees and advance their knowledge.
Since the late 1970s, over 3,000 eligible employees have explored new horizons and been nourished by the company’s focus on learning and development.
Diversity
Young women are being encouraged to join the program, with many studying at schools and universities across the globe, including the U.S., the U.K., Spain, France, Singapore, and Ireland.
Delivered by Aramco’s Training and Development organization, qualified Saudi employees are encouraged to pursue higher education degrees in specialties that reflect Aramco’s business needs of the present and the future.
As such, the ADP is in a constant state of evolution and tailored to emerging job roles.
Since 2018, it has broadened its academic course palette to include data science, business analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and others.
Success stories
Amer Alanazi, a petroleum engineer major at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), is studying for his doctorate with his area of focus on underground hydrogen storage.
One of Alanazi’s research papers, “Hydrogen Wettability Measurement of Saudi Basaltic Rocks at Underground Storage Conditions,” won the best paper award at the International Geomechanics Symposium in November last year. This symposium is a global summit for the world’s leading oil and gas companies and universities.
The ADP allowed me to study anticipated challenges to the Saudi low carbon energy plans and enabled me to introduce technical, well exploited solutions.
— Amer Alanazi
Ahmed Alsmaeil, from Aramco’s EXPEC Advanced Research Center, is studying chemical engineering at Cornell University in the U.S.
He came in second in the Society of Petroleum Engineers Middle East Region graduate student paper contest, with his paper titled, “Responsive Nanocarriers: A New Delivery Platform for Oil-Water and Oil-Solid Interfaces.”
“The study enables the utilization of responsive delivery vehicles of active materials in oil reservoirs that are intended for enhanced oil recovery, detection, and monitoring of oil fields,” said Alsmaeil.
Ghadeer Alhawaj, who took part in the ADP program and received an M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering at Imperial College London, U.K., won the Colin Wall Prize in May 2022 for the best development plan — with her work focusing on the Wytch Farm oil field in the U.K.
“Studying at Imperial College London gave me the chance to work and connect with many industry professionals from across the globe,” Alhawaj said.
Doctor in the making
Saleh Komies is studying for a Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London.
In 2022, he won the first-place award for best conference presentation in the annual Advances in Communications, Devices, and Systems (ACDS) Conference, a renowned event for sharing outstanding research.
Komies has also been accepted into the MISK Fellowship Program — a six-month course for exceptional Saudi students to further their studies at an international university.
All are shining examples of Saudi talent, with the ADP serving as a key tool to ensure that Aramco continues ahead of the curve in knowledge.