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Saudi Arabia plans to increase oil exports to 10.6 mb/d from May 2020

Saudi Arabia plans to ramp up its crude oil exports by 600 kb/d to reach a total of 10.6 mb/d from May 2020. To reach this objective, the country plans to reduce the consumption of domestic oil in power generation and to rather use gas produced by the 71 mcm/d (26 bcm/year) Fadhili gas plant that will process gas from onshore and offshore fields. In addition, the reduction in transportation caused by the measures in place to limit the Covid-19 epidemic has reduced the domestic demand for petroleum products.

Earlier in March 2020, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC oil producers led by Russia failed to agree on a further cut in crude oil production in order to firm up global oil prices. The current agreement on production cuts of 2.1 mb/d expired on 31 March 2020 and will not be extended. In addition, the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia announced that the national oil company Saudi Aramco would produce 12.3 mb/d over the coming months and the company received instructions from the government to boost its production capacity from 12 mb/d to 13 mb/d.