The story behind our rapid growth in patents

While our Company's research capabilities were significantly expanded through a hiring drive of specialist engineers and scientists, a significant leap was achieved with the establishment of a global network of research organizations.

In 2012, we began to expand our research operations outside of our headquarters in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and focused on setting up a network of research and technology centers around the world, in proximity to global talent hubs.

This boost in our research capabilities accelerated the stream of granted patents focused on lower-carbon solutions and products, across multiple key industries.

We have set up a wide range of co-development programs with leading academic organizations and research institutions, such as the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies in the U.S., Tsinghua University in China, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea, and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). 

These programs are focused on potential solutions across the energy value chain, and oftentimes beyond Company operations and core business, in an effort to help customers and partners address some of their pressing challenges, such as those related to carbon management and environmental performance. 

We initiated an awareness campaign to help generate ideas from within, build a culture of innovation, and drive better understanding of the importance of innovation.

Employees across the Company were educated in relevant areas, and on how to develop an idea from a concept to a patent.

The Company also established a dedicated Innovation Board and an innovation management system to promote efforts and a culture of creativity, and targets and KPIs were set for generating ideas.

While many of the patented solutions are still being developed for our own operations and products, we are aspiring to develop and advance solutions beyond our core business.

This role and contribution are possible given the Company's deep insights into most areas of the energy value chain, coupled with growing experience with developing leading technology and scaling it.

A dedicated team is helping to drive collaboration with our partners, introducing novel research and development ideas, and commercializing patented solutions.

We've made recent strides in applying artificial intelligence (AI) to determine the level of corrosion in underground pipes and when maintenance calls are required.

This new approach is a significant advancement, as it removes the need and extensive effort of digging up the ground, frequently in areas that didn't need repair.

With this new technology, thermographic cameras take pictures across the pipe network and AI predicts where corrosion is most likely. The system is already approaching 90% accuracy and will improve further with more data.