Saudi Aramco has said it would market 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude from May under an agreement by the OPEC+ alliance of major producers.
OPEC+ agreed Sunday to slash daily production by 9.7 million bpd over the next two months to boost plummeting prices and shore up the energy market amid the coronavirus outbreak.
In a brief statement on the website of the Saudi bourse, Aramco said Friday it would make available 8.5 million bpd.
That includes oil supply to Aramco’s domestic customers inside the country and exports abroad.
According to the deal, Saudi Arabia and Russia will cut 2.5 million bpd each from their October 2018 production levels of 11 million bpd.
Saudi Aramco has allocated around 4 million barrels per day of crude oil to its Asian customers, which is lower than its full contractual volumes to Asia by about 2 million bpd, a Saudi oil source familiar with the company’s plans told Reuters on Friday.
“The full contractual volumes to Asia are about 6 million bpd. What Aramco has allocated is what was nominated, which is around 4 million bpd,” the Saudi source said on condition of anonymity.
Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has said that the Kingdom could cut oil output below its current quota of 8.5 million bpd if there was a need by the market over the coming months and if any reductions were done collectively with other producers on a pro-rata basis.
He said oil purchases into reserves (SPRs) of countries were seen at 200 million barrels over the next couple of months.
