RIYADH: Saudi Arabian Oil Co, the world’s largest oil exporter, increased production to an annual record last year before the kingdom led OPEC and other global producers to curb output to counter a global oversupply.
Crude production averaged 10.5 million barrels a day compared with 10.2 million barrels in 2015, the state-owned company known as Aramco said in its annual review published Thursday on its website. Crude oil and condensate reserves stood at 260.8 billion barrels compared with 261.1 billion barrels a year earlier. Natural gas production rose to 12 billion standard cubic feet a day from 11.6 billion standard cubic feet. “This past year, Saudi Aramco leveraged its capabilities, talent, innovation and fiscal discipline to ensure resilience and realize landmark achievements, including record high rates of crude oil production, raw gas processing and sales gas production,” chairman Khalid Al-Falih, who is also Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, said in the review. “All of this was achieved against the backdrop of persistently low oil prices and a weak global economy.”
Saudi Arabia led the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ decision to begin cutting production in January to reduce swollen global inventories and bolster the price of oil. In May, OPEC and its partners including Russia extended their agreement for nine months through March 2018 because the oil market had failed to re-balance. The price for benchmark Brent crude has declined 15 percent this year. Aramco accounts currently for all of Saudi Arabia’s oil production because a zone it shares with Kuwait is temporarily closed.
