Most oil producers will no doubt be happy to see the end of 2009, the year prices plummeted, in many cases cutting revenues in half. But for Saudi Arabia, this year has been marked by two impressive achievements. The kingdom completed its mammoth goal of expanding its production capacity to 12.5m barrels a day, enough to cover 15 per cent of demand.
The vast, complex and technically challenging project cost almost $100bn and took five years to complete.
