Saudi Arabia’s revenues from oil exports crashed in April by 21% from a year earlier – to the lowest level in nearly four years – as international oil prices dipped amid concerns about oversupply and potentially weaker global economic growth.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude oil exporter and leader of the OPEC+ group, saw its export revenues from oil at $16.5 billion in April, per data from the Kingdom’s General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) out on Wednesday.
The figure showed a decline of 21.2% year over year, as oil prices crashed by about 15% in April alone amid the U.S. tariff blitz and the OPEC+ decision to hike monthly production this summer by more than previously planned under the agreement to ease the production cuts.
The Saudi oil revenues in April were also down by 7% compared to March.
Total Saudi merchandise exports decreased by 10.9% in April 2025 compared to April 2024, as a result of a 21.2% slump in oil exports, the statistics body said.
Consequently, the percentage of oil exports out of the value of total exports slumped from 77.5% in April 2024 to 68.6% in April 2025.
As the value of oil exports slumped, the value of non-oil exports increased by 24.6% in April 2025 from a year earlier.
The oil price slump in April and the subsequent volatility in prices in May and June amid economic concerns and geopolitical flare-ups are challenging the Saudi budget and expenditure planning.
The Kingdom already booked a hefty budget deficit for the first quarter, even before the oil prices plunged in April.
Saudi Arabia’s budget deficit jumped to $15.6 billion (58.7 billion Saudi riyals) in Q1. That’s already more than half of the deficit the Kingdom had forecast for the full year—$27 billion (101 billion riyals).
All the deficit in the first quarter was covered by borrowing, suggesting that Saudi Arabia prefers to continue tapping debt markets to using central bank foreign currency reserves.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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