The world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, increased its crude oil exports to 6.582 billion barrels per day (bpd) in January 2021, above 6.495 billion bpd in December 2020, according to Joint Organizations Data Initiative (TODAY).
Total exports of Saudi oil, including crude oil and petroleum products, rose again slightly month-on-month by 44,000 bpd to 7.75 million bpd in January 2021, according to JODI, which collects self-reported data from countries.
Saudi Arabia has been increasing its crude oil exports every month since June last year, when the UK saw its crude oil exports fall to a record low, just below 5 million bpd, as the leader de facto OPEC led the efforts of the OPEC + group a record amount of crude oil in the market in response to falling demand.
This year, Saudi Arabia’s crude exports will fall after January, as the world’s largest oil exporter has reduced its production by a million more barrels since February above its share of oil. ‘OPEC +, while the only members of the alliance allowed to increase production since February are non-OPEC producers Russia and Kazakhstan.
In January 2021, the Saudis surprised the market with the decision to unilaterally cut one million barrels per day, while the OPEC + group only slightly reduced the cuts due to concessions in Russia and Kazakhstan.
At the last OPEC + meeting in early March, Saudi Arabia surprised the market once again, saying it would maintain the additional reduction in April, rather than just February and March, as it was. originally planned. OPEC + decided not to ease the cuts in April – except for a combined 150,000 bpd increase for Russia and Kazakhstan – as the group seeks to harden the market and keep the dust dry until it sees tangible evidence of a rebound. world demand for oil.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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