Business: Aramco's Stormy Petrol

Gushing profits, big tax breaks and divided loyalties

Nobody will be following OPEC'S maneuverings in Caracas this week more closely than the executives of a highly secretive oil Goliath that many people have never heard of. The Arabian American Oil Co., or Aramco, is the Delaware-based firm that is jointly owned by Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Standard Oil Co. of California. Under a geographic concession nearly as large as the state of Oklahoma, Aramco pumps almost all the oil that flows from the Croesus-rich fields of Saudi Arabia. But in Riyadh and Washington...

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