Saudi Arabia’s November Oil Output Rise to 30-Year High
January 19, 2012, 3:21 AM EST
By Wael Mahdi
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest crude producer, increased output in November to the highest level in more than 30 years while boosting exports by more than 10 percent, according to the Joint Organization Data Initiative.
The country pumped 10.047 million barrels a day of crude, up from 9.36 million in October, statistics posted today on JODI’s website show. Exports rose by 721,000 barrels a day to 7.8 million barrels a day, according to the figures, which include condensates and exclude natural-gas liquids.
Saudi Arabia’s crude-oil consumption fell by 9.2 percent in November from the previous month, when it reached the highest level since at least 2002, according to JODI. The world’s largest exporter of crude used an average of 1.84 million barrels a day of oil in November, compared with 2.02 million barrels in October. The kingdom’s oil consumption has grown at an average of 4.8 percent a year in the past five years, Riyadh- based Jadwa Investment Co., said last month.
Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said at last month’s meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna that Saudi output increased because there was no excess supply in world crude markets and that his nation had been adjusting output to match fluctuating demand of recent months.
JODI’s production figure corroborates comments made by al- Naimi on Dec. 6, when he said in an interview in Durban, South Africa, that November output exceeded 10 million barrels a day, more than most independent estimates at the time.
The initiative is supervised by the Riyadh-based International Energy Forum and compiles data provided by member governments. The IEF is a group of nations accounting for more than 90 percent of global oil and gas supply and demand, established as a forum for producing and consuming countries to discuss international energy security.
--Editors: John Buckley, Raj Rajendran
