Saudi Aramco to increase production to 12.3 million barrel

Dubai: Saudi Aramco announced on Tuesday that it will boost output to 12.3 million barrel a day in April.

Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange, has also suspended trading of Saudi Aramco shares on Tuesday at the request of the company before the announcment.

"Saudi Aramco announces that it will provide its customers with 12.3 million barrels per day of crude oil in April," the company said in a statement to the Saudi stock exchange.

The world's biggest crude exporter has been pumping some 9.8 million bpd which means it will be adding at least 2.5 million bpd from April.

"The Company has agreed with its customers to provide them with such volumes starting 1 April 2020. The Company expects that this will have a positive, long-term financial effect," the statement said.

The state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco has seen its shares drop by 10 per cent as Riyadh stock market opened on Monday, halting trading.

The Tadawul market only allows stocks to fluctuate by 10 per cent a day, meaning it halted traded early Monday as the market opened.

It came as global oil prices suffered their worst losses since the start of the 1991 Gulf War.

Other Mideast markets fell as well as the new coronavirus has affected global energy prices and OPEC failed to make a production cut deal with Russia last week.

Saudi Arabia launches price war

Oil plunged over 25 per cent Monday after top exporter Saudi Arabia launched a price war in response to a failure by leading producers to strike a deal to support energy markets.

The two main contracts both lost about a fifth of their value in morning Asian trade, with West Texas Intermediate sliding to about $30.15 a barrel and Brent crude to about $33.60 a barrel.

Saudi Arabia launched an all-out oil war Sunday with the biggest cut in its prices in the last 20 years, Bloomberg News reported, after a failure by the OPEC group and its allies to clinch a deal to cut production.