What does Saudi Arabia produce and export?

The Arabian platform is a stack of porous carbonate reservoirs sealed beneath thick evaporite, gently folded and rarely faulted, which is a near-ideal arrangement for trapping oil in very large volumes. Ghawar, found in 1948, remains the largest conventional oilfield ever discovered, and strong natural aquifer drive means wells flow without much help. Reservoirs that shallow, that productive and that few in number give the lowest lifting costs of any major producer. Saudi Arabia produced 11% of the world's crude oil in 2025 (Energy Institute) and held 14% of world crude export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), the largest share of any exporter.

What makes the country unusual is not volume but the deliberate holding of unused capacity. The state company, taken over in stages between 1973 and 1980, maintains wells and processing plants above the level it produces, so output can be raised or cut by millions of barrels a day within weeks. That spare capacity is the mechanism behind Saudi influence over price and behind the production agreements it negotiates with other exporters. Physical routing matters too: an east-west pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea exists so that cargoes can bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

Gas is produced but not exported. Fields associated with the oil, and later the non-associated Jafurah shale, supply 3.2% of world natural gas output in 2025 (Energy Institute), all of it burned at home for power generation, desalination and petrochemicals, which displaces crude that would otherwise be used for the same jobs.

Food moves the other way. Rain is negligible and the aquifers are fossil, so a wheat self-sufficiency program run through the 1980s was wound down after 2008 to stop drawing down groundwater; domestic wheat growing has largely been replaced by purchases abroad. The kingdom bought 4.8% of world rice import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). Sugar shows a different pattern: refineries at Jeddah buy raw cane sugar, and Saudi Arabia took 4.9% of world sugar import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI) while shipping out 1.4% of world sugar export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI) as refined white sugar to neighboring markets.