Saudi Arabia’s oil company Aramco has said it will increase production capacity to 13 million barrels per day, up from 12 million per day.
The majority state-owned company’s announcement, made on the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange, did not say when that capacity increase would happen.
Aramco says the decision to increase capacity was a directive to the company from the Saudi Energy Ministry.
Saudi Arabia has been producing around 9.8 million barrels per day, carrying the bulk of cuts that were agreed upon by Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) members and other major oil producers, namely Russia, to stave off an oversupply in the market that would further push prices down.
Over the weekend, the kingdom’s strategy dramatically changed when Russia refused to co-operate on further and deeper production cuts.
Aramco now says it will increase its crude oil production to 12.3 million barrels a day starting in April. That is 300,000 barrels per day more than Aramco’s current maximum sustained capacity.
By increasing output and production, and slashing its official selling prices to Asia, analysts say it appears Saudi Arabia is now looking to dominate market share since it was unable to secure market price.
The move led to a 25% plunge in the price of crude on Monday, the sharpest decline seen since the 1991 Gulf War. International benchmark Brent crude traded up more than 8% on Tuesday over 37 US dollars (£29) a barrel.
“The most likely outcome of this crisis is entrenchment into a painful process that lasts several weeks or months, until prices are low enough to change fundamental views in Moscow and Riyadh back to some form of compromise,” according to political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group.
Eurasia Group said that the price war will, meanwhile, exert pressure on US crude exports, which recently hit a record 4 million barrels per day, because they will struggle to get their cargoes to clients at profit.
