The desert kingdom has the world's biggest oil production facilities and the biggest oil reserves.
Although the Saudis are viewed as extremely reliable oil producers, since the country began nationalizing its oil industry in the 1970s access for Western firms to this vast resource has been increasingly limited. Today Saudi Aramco, the state oil firm previously controlled by Chevron, Texaco, Exxon and Mobil, pumps the overwhelming majority of the country's oil.
As Saudi Aramco is generally seen as one of the most sophisticated oil companies in the world, there is little hope Western firms will ever again be let in on the Saudi oil bonanza.
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