Saudi Arabia to keep supply curbs steady

London/Tokyo: Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, will keep its crude oil supply curbs steady to customers in Japan and Europe in September from August, industry sources said yesterday.

The steady volume indicates the largest producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) is keeping a lid on output and raises expectations that Opec's September 11 meeting will not alter supply policy.

"With the Opec soundbites calling for no output change at the next meeting and Saudi Arabia making apparently no changes to the September nominations, a 'no-change' Opec policy will start to be increasingly priced in," said Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix in Switzerland.

In monthly notices, state oil firm Saudi Aramco said it would continue to supply Asian lifters with around 10 percent less than their full contractual volume, as it has since April, two sources in Japan said.

Sources at three European oil refiners also said supply would be unchanged.

"We're going to have exactly the same. It's been the same for six months, at least in our case," one of the sources said.

More than half of Saudi Arabia's crude heads to Asia. In 2006, Saudi Arabia shipped 51.6 per cent of its almost seven million barrels per day of crude exports to the region.

An industry source in South Korea said the company had not received notices yet but expected steady supplies from August.