Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest crude producer, plans to increase the capacity of its main cross-country pipeline by 40 percent as the company expands oil fields in the eastern part of the nation and builds refineries on the western coast. Capacity of the 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) East-West pipeline will increase to 7 million barrels a day by late 2018, from 5 million barrels a day now, the company said on its Twitter account on Tuesday. The pipeline starts near Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran to Yanbu on the west coast near the Red Sea where it’s expanding refining and petrochemical plants. “There’s no let up in Aramco’s plans for downstream expansion, so this would help in making sure they eliminate any bottlenecks in shipping crude,” Edward Bell, a commodities analyst at lender Emirates NBD PJSC, said by phone from Dubai. “There’s room for considerable demand growth both domestically […]