Saudi Oil minister Ali an-Naimi told a reporter in South Africa, “We produced 10,040,000 barrels a day in November because that is what the customers wanted.” He didn’t say what customers wanted more crude.
The November output was a jump of more than 6 percent from October’s production.
There was speculation the Saudis might be ramping up production in an effort to displace some of Iran’s output and drive down its revenues. However, the November output hike would have nothing to do with the attack on the British embassy in Tehran, which happened one day before November ended.
The output cited by Naimi was the highest monthly output recorded by the US Energy Department, whose published tabulations on Saudi output go back to 1980, just after the Iranian revolution.
According to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, Saudi output was 9.8 million barrels a day in August, 9.4 million in September and 9.45 million in October.
The Saudis announced they were raising output earlier this year to make up for the loss of Libyan oil during the civil war there. But the civil war is now over and Libyan output is being ramped back up. Iran recently asked the Saudis to lower their production now that Libyan oil is returning to the market.
Market analysts could not see a logical market reason for Saudi Arabia to be boosting production at this juncture.
