Saudis to pump oil at fastest rate in decades

The world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia will boost output next month to the fastest rate in decades to help keep pace with demand and tame what it sees as unacceptably high fuel prices.

Riyadh plans to lift output to 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday after meeting Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi.
That would be a rise of 550,000 bpd or over 6 percent since May and would take Saudi crude output to its highest monthly rate since August 1981, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

“9.7, that is what he (Naimi) said,” on July output, the Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper quoted the UN Secretary General as saying on its website.

Reuters