Saudi Arabia’s crude exports soared by 412,000 barrels per day (bpd) in April from March, the latest data by the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter, saw its exports in April at an average of 6.17 million bpd, according to the JODI data which compiles self-reported figures from the individual countries.
Crude oil production in Saudi Arabia rose by around 48,000 bpd in April compared to the March production level of 8.96 million bpd.
Domestic refinery intake slumped in April from March, which also freed more barrels for exports.
Since April, Saudi Arabia has been consistently increasing its crude oil production, as the OPEC+ group it leads is unwinding 2.2 million bpd in total oil production cuts.
Since starting to unwind the cuts earlier this year, OPEC+ producers Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman made a small output increase of 138,000 bpd in April and then began to aggressively raise production quotas by 411,000 bpd for each of May, June, and July.
At this weekend’s meeting, the OPEC+ group caught the market by surprise by announcing a larger-than-expected output hike of 548,000 bpd for August.
This exceeded market expectations of another routine 411,000 bpd hike, while the move set the alliance on track to fully unwind 2.2 million bpd cuts nearly a year ahead of schedule. Another production boost of 550,000 bpd for September is expected, and this would allow OPEC+ to unwind all the 2.2 million bpd cuts.
OPEC+ producers still have 1.6 million bpd in other production cuts spread among the group members and expiring at the end of 2026.
Saudi Arabia is thus set to further increase its crude oil production, but its crude oil exports may not be as proportionately high in the summer because the Kingdom uses crude for direct burn at power plants to meet peak air-conditioning demand in the scorching temperatures.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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