Saudi Arabia announced on Thursday that it will extend its voluntary cut of one million barrels of oil per day until September, a reduction that could be extended in the future and even “increased”, the official Saudi news agency SPA reported, citing a source in the ministry of Power of the Arab kingdom.
“Saudi Arabia will extend the voluntary cut of one million barrels per day, which was applied in July, for one more month and will be applied during the month of September, with the possibility that this reduction is extended or increased,” SPA said.
Although analysts already expected the extension of this unilateral measure, which will further boost the price of ‘black gold’, this reduction is added to the pumping cuts that the Arab country committed to with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. (OPEC). And it is that last April the rich country of the Persian Gulf already announced a unilateral voluntary cut within the framework of OPEC of another million barrels per day, which will last until the end of December 2023.
Thus, according to SPA, Saudi Arabia’s production in September will be about nine million barrels of crude oil per day. “This additional voluntary reduction has been taken to reinforce the precautionary efforts made by the OPEC+ countries (OPEC and its allies) with the aim of supporting the stability and balance of the oil markets,” excluded the source from the Saudi Ministry of Energy. cited by the agency.
Almost a fifth of the world’s crude oil reserves
Saudi Arabia, which has about 17% of the world’s crude reserves, has reduced its production several times as part of the OPEC+ policy, which the Arab kingdom leads with Russia. OPEC estimated in its June report that world demand for crude oil would grow by 2.4 million barrels per day in the second half of this year due to greater consumption of emerging energies. The organization has decided to reduce production to avoid a collapse in prices, which is causing the value of “black gold” to rise.
