Kingdom boosts oil output to 9.4m bpd in February

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia pumped almost 9.4 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, trade publication Petroleum Intelligence Weekly said, pegging the Kingdom’s oil output at higher levels than most other estimates. Saudi Arabia last week pledged that they would fill any supply gap caused by the disruption of exports from Libya. The Kingdom is pumping around 9 million bpd and has spare capacity of around 3.5 million bpd, a senior Saudi source told Reuters on Monday. Saudi Arabia started ramping production from late last year to cool prices, which in the case of European benchmark Brent approached $120 a barrel last week, and to satisfy increasing demand from China and India, the newsletter said, citing industry sources it didn’t identify. Including the Neutral Zone, Saudi output climbed to 9.38 million bpd in February from 9.08 million bpd in January and 8.62 million bpd in December, PIW said. That compares with an average of 8.65 million bpd in February and 8.5 million bpd in January, according to a Reuters survey of oil companies, OPEC officials and analysts, which also showed the kingdom’s output had reached 9 million bpd by the end of the month. The country’s implied output target based on 2008 OPEC cuts is 8.05 million bpd.