Trump says Riyadh to raise oil output by 2m bpd

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 30, 2018 12:49PM

US President Donald Trump says Saudi Arabia's King Salman has agreed to his request to increase the kingdom's oil output in what is already seen as part of Washington's aggressive agenda against Iran.

Trump announced in an early morning tweet that the Saudi daily oil production could rise by "maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels," stressing that this would be meant to offset production from Iran and Venezuela.

Later in a phone call reported by Saudi state media on Saturday, King Salman and Trump emphasized the need to preserve the efforts of oil-producing countries to compensate for any potential shortage.

The statement, however, did not mention any intention by Saudi Arabia to raise production to 2 million barrels per day.

The world's top oil exporter plans to pump up to 11 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in July, Reuters quoted an oil industry source as saying this week, after OPEC agreed with Russia and other oil-producing allies to raise output by about 1 million bpd.

Earlier, Iran had reacted strongly to a purported plan by Saudi Arabia to increase its production of crude oil and said the alleged attempt would belittle the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) which last week agreed to maintain supplies.

Iran's OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili was quoted by media as criticizing the Saudi move which he said were in line with pressures by the United States.

OPEC and a group of non-OPEC countries agreed on Saturday that they would return to 100 percent compliance with previously agreed oil output cuts, after months of underproduction by OPEC countries including Venezuela and Angola.

However, media reported later that Saudi Arabia would boost output in July to 10.6 million barrels a day (bpd), 10.8 million bpd and 11.0 million bpd, up from its OPEC target of 10.058 million bpd.

In May, US President Donald Trump announced that he would pull America out of a 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and re-impose the sanctions that the deal had envisaged to be lifted.

He has already emphasized that the sanctions which would be imposed on Iran would be "at the highest level".

The sanctions would include a universal ban on Iran over buying or acquiring US dollars as well as restrictions over purchases of crude oil from the country and investing in its oil sector projects.