State oil company Saudi Aramco wants to expand globally and is looking at potential joint ventures in several countries, including Indonesia, India, the US, Vietnam and China, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday.

"We are looking at the current market status that, even though challenging, is an excellent opportunity for growth," he told reporters during a rare media visit to company facilities in Dhahran.

The company is continuing to build its oil production and refining capacity, and its Shaybah oilfield is expected to reach output capacity of 1 million barrels per day "in a couple of weeks", Nasser added.

Aramco has been working to boost Shaybah's capacity by 250,000 bpd to rebalance its crude oil quality and help compensate for the maturing of other fields.

He said demand for Saudi Aramco's oil is increasing and the company is meeting that demand.

"We will meet the call on Saudi Aramco...The trend is increasing," he told reporters. "We are seeing demand growth in different places. We are seeing increases in India, in the US, and we are meeting that call on us," he said, adding that he expected total oil demand to climb by 1.2 million barrels per day this year.

Domestic demand during the Saudi Arabian summer will cause a slight increase in burning of liquids for power generation, he said, adding that Aramco's average crude output in 2015 was 10.2 million barrels per day.

Nasser said Aramco expects a huge ship repair and shipbuilding complex that it is developing at Ras Al-Khair on the kingdom's east coast to be fully operational by 2021.

Under a sweeping economic reform programme announced last month, Aramco is to play a big role in developing industrial projects as Saudi Arabia tries to diversify its economy beyond reliance on oil exports.

The first part of the shipbuilding complex will be ready by 2018, and it will eventually make oil rigs and tankers, Nasser said.

A presentation by the company showed the complex would create 80,000 jobs and allow Saudi Arabia to reduce its imports by $12 billion, while increasing the country's gross domestic product by $17 billion. - Reuters