NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia plans to go beyond OPEC’s deepest ever single cut in supply as the world’s top oil exporter looks to halt a slide that has lopped over $110 off the oil price since July.
The Kingdom will pump below its OPEC target in February at its lowest level in over six years and is prepared to go further still to balance a market battered by falling demand and a global recession, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi told reporters yesterday.
“We will do what it takes to bring it back to balance,” he said on arrival in India for an energy conference.
The Saudi supply target was 8.05 million barrels per day, a little under 10 percent of global output, after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to its biggest ever cut in December.
“It will be lower,” Al-Naimi said of the February output. The Kingdom was currently pumping around 8 million barrels per day, he added.
Oil jumped almost $2 to above $39 a barrel hours after Al-Naimi’s announcement. US crude oil futures for February settled at $37.78, up 19 cents, off a season high of $39.50.
February Brent jumped to a high of $45.17, up $2.26.
