Oil company founded by the Standard Oil Co. of California (Chevron) in 1933, when the government of Saudi Arabia granted it a concession. Other U.S. companies joined after oil was found near Dhahran in 1938. In 1950 Aramco opened a pipeline from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea port of Sidon, Leb. It was closed in 1983 except to supply a refinery in Jordan. A more successful pipeline, with a destination on the Persian Gulf, was finished in 1981. In 1951 Aramco found the first offshore oil field in the Middle East. In the 1970s and '80s, control gradually passed to the Saudi Arabian government, which eventually took over Aramco and renamed it Saudi Aramco in 1988.