Faisal AlNughaimish: Engineering Leadership Across Saudi Arabia’s Upstream Energy Sector

Faisal AlNughaimish is a senior energy executive at Aramco with more than two decades of experience spanning reservoir management, production engineering, offshore operations, drilling, and workover. His career combines deep technical expertise with strategic leadership across major upstream operations.

Leading Drilling & Workover Operations

As Senior Vice President, Drilling & Workover Operations at Aramco, AlNughaimish leads a critical area of the company’s upstream operations, building on extensive experience managing large-scale drilling activities.

Previously, he served as Vice President & Chief Petroleum Engineer, overseeing Saudi Arabia’s oil subsurface assets, including reservoir management, simulation, reserves, reservoir planning, production, and facility development.

He also served as Vice President & Chief Drilling Engineer, managing drilling engineering across a fleet of more than 200 rigs.

Two Decades of Technical Excellence

AlNughaimish’s Aramco career includes leadership across drilling engineering, reservoir engineering, production engineering, and offshore operations.

His technical experience encompasses horizontal and multilateral wells, intelligent completions, extended-reach drilling, high-pressure/high-temperature gas wells, well interventions, reservoir simulation, and field development.

His work has covered both onshore and offshore environments, including major field development projects and Safaniya operations.

Strategic & Industry Leadership

Beyond Aramco, AlNughaimish holds several prominent governance roles, including Chairman of SANAD and board positions with Aramco Gulf Operations, ARO Drilling, Saudi Aramco Upstream Technology Company, Carbon Capture and Storage Solutions, and Al-Qadsiah Saudi Club.

He previously served as Vice Chairman and Board Member of TAQA and as MENA Director at the Society of Petroleum Engineers International, reflecting his contribution to both industry leadership and energy-sector development.

Education & Professional Development

AlNughaimish holds an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University and a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University, graduating with Cum Laude honors. He also completed the General Management Program at Harvard Business School and is a certified SPE Petroleum Engineer.

Shaping the Future of Upstream Energy

Combining extensive field experience with executive leadership, Faisal AlNughaimish represents a distinctive blend of engineering excellence, operational leadership, and strategic energy-sector expertise.

Saudi Leaders Recognition

Saudi Leaders recognizes Faisal AlNughaimish for his distinguished contribution to Saudi Arabia’s upstream energy sector, his leadership in drilling and petroleum engineering, and his continued role in advancing technical and strategic excellence across the industry.