Vela was established in 1984 to provide marine transportation for refined products and crude oil produced by Saudi Aramco.  Vela is a corporation registered in the Republic of Liberia and is a totally owned subsidiary of Saudi Aramco with its headquarters in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Vela began as a small company operating with only four crude oil tankers.  In 1992, Vela doubled its capacity by purchasing another four secondhand VLCCs and ULCCs.

 Auriga - 1984               

A new era of responsibility and growth came in 1993 with the merger of the Saudi Arabian Marketing and Refining Company (SAMAREC) and Saudi Aramco.  At that time, Vela was also entrusted to provide marine transportation services for Saudi Arabian domestic coastal crude and petroleum products, as well as for product imports.

As a further result of the SAMAREC merger with Saudi Aramco, Vela became operator of an additional four mediam range product tankers owned by Saudi Aramco. In the early 1990s, Vela further embarked on an ambitious strategy to more than double its capacity by adding 15 newbuilding VLCCs.  The last of these 15 newbuildings was delivered to Vela in 1995.  From that point, Vela was one of the world’s largest owners and operators of very large crude and product carriers.

Since its original fleet expansion in the early 1990’s, Vela has also ordered and accepted delivery of four new double-hull VLCCs, a double-hull Aframax product tanker and four double-hull MR product tankers, while retiring all of its original second-hand single-hull tanker fleet.  Vela also has on order an additional six double-hull VLCCs and has an ongoing fleet replacement program which will result in a fully double-hulled fleet by 2013.