DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Aramco <2222.SE> will raise its crude supply, which includes oil to its customers inside the kingdom and abroad, to 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in April, CEO Amin Nasser said on Tuesday.
April’s crude supply will be “300,000 barrels per day over the company’s maximum sustained capacity of 12 million bpd,” Nasser said in a statement received by Reuters.
The company has agreed with its customers to provide those volumes starting April 1, he added.
Supply to the market from production may differ depending on the movement of barrels in and out of storage.
The unprecedented hike in crude supply by Riyadh follows the collapse of talks between OPEC and other producers led by Russia – a grouping known as OPEC+ – which had sought to extend their joint efforts to curb supply beyond the end of March.
Three years of cooperation among OPEC+ producers ended in acrimony on Friday after Moscow refused to support deeper production cuts to support prices hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
OPEC responded by removing all limits on its own output.
OPEC+ has been effectively cutting production by 2.1 million bpd led by Saudi Arabia, which has been reducing its output by more than agreed.
(Reporting by Rania El Gamal; editing by Maha El Dahan and Jason Neely)
