Saudi Arabia slashes oil output to defend $100 price

[link to www.telegraph.co.uk]

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has slashed its production of crude in an apparent attempt to prevent the price falling further below $100 per barrel.

The kingdom, which has the capacity to pump 12.5m barrels per day (bpd) of crude at full choke, trimmed 400,000 bpd from its output last month as prices began to weaken, according to a monthly market report issued by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). That is equal to about half the UK’s total oil output at present levels.

Saudi is considered to be the world’s swing producer because it accounts for about 10pc of global demand. The country has acted on several occasions either to pump more oil into the market to ease price pressures, or cut back to maintain prices at levels around $100.