The world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, increased its crude oil exports to 6.582 million barrels per day (bpd) in January 2021, compared to 6.495 million bpd in December 2020, data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative ( JODI) showed on Friday.
Total exports of Saudi oil, including crude oil and total petroleum products, increased slightly again month-over-month by 44,000 bpd to 7.75 million bpd in January 2021, according to JODI, which compiles self-reported country data. .
Saudi Arabia has been increasing its crude oil exports every month since June last year, when the Kingdom saw its crude oil exports drop to the lowest level in history, just below 5 million bpd, as the de facto leader OPEC’s lead the efforts of the OPEC + group to retain a record amount of crude oil from the market in response to falling demand.
This year, Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports are expected to fall after January, with the world’s largest oil exporter reducing its production by an extra 1 million bpd since February, in addition to its OPEC + quota, as the only members of the alliance. are 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 cut unilaterally by 1 million bpd, while the OPEC + group eased the cuts only slightly due to concessions to Russia and Kazakhstan.
At the last OPEC + meeting in early March, Saudi Arabia surprised the market once again, saying it would maintain the extra cut in April, instead of just in February and March as originally planned. OPEC + decided not to ease the cuts in April – except for a combined increase of 150,000 bpd for Russia and Kazakhstan – as the group is trying to squeeze the market and keep its powder dry until it sees tangible evidence of recovery in global demand for Petroleum.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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