Saudi Arabia cut oil exports sharply this month as the kingdom complies with an OPEC deal to prop up crude markets.
Saudi shipments fell about 430,000 barrels per day, or about 6 percent, in mid-November from last month, according to data from energy research company Kpler Ltd.
An even bigger drop of 676,000 barrels per day observed by another consultant, Vortexa Ltd.
The kingdom, which heads the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is fully committed to the deal reached last month between the organization and its allies, according to an official who asked to be identified.
“Saudi Arabia is cutting a lot, for a month in a row,” said Viktor Katona, an analyst at Kpler in Vienna.
President Joe Biden criticized Riyadh and its partners last month, saying the sharp cut of 2 million barrels a day would endanger the global economy and OPEC member Russia in its war in Ukraine, though oil market trends have justified the ruling ever since.
Crude oil costs fell about 4% this week to just $90 a barrel amid fragile demand.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman defended the budget cuts last week at COP27 climate talks in Egypt, saying they were mandatory to offset excessive economic uncertainties.
He said the organization would remain “cautious. ” The kingdom has sought to set an example for OPEC, temporarily fulfilling, or even overcoming, the restrictions it promised, to inspire other members to follow.
Exports from the thirteen OPEC members fell “particularly in the first part of November, by more than a million barrels a day,” said Daniel Gerber, chief executive of Geneva-based tanker tracking company Petro-Logistics.
While there is likely to be a slight buildup in the current part of the month, flows are on track for an average monthly decline of 1 million per day, roughly equivalent to the overall relief promised by the group, according to the company, which has been tracking tanker traffic for 4 decades.
Among OPEC’s Saudi counterparts in the Middle East, symptoms of relief were more varied, shipping data for the first part of the month could paint a fragmentary, distortion-prone picture if many shipments fall only within or outside the date range. .
Iraq saw a drop of 308,000 barrels per day, or about nine percent, in shipments in the first two weeks of November and flows from Kuwait appeared broadly stable, but UAE exports topped 37,9,000 barrels per day. with day, or about 12 constant withcent, according to Kpler.
Shipments from the United Arab Emirates are concentrated at the beginning of the month and decline later in the period, Bloomberg’s tanker tracker said.
The country’s Energy Ministry and state manufacturer Adnoc did not respond to requests for comment.
Abu Dhabi has been more interested in implementing the new production capacity it has invested in than cutting supplies, sparking a dispute last year that nearly broke the OPEC alliance.
Some OPEC delegates have said privately that Abu Dhabi was not the first to make the group’s cuts, though others have disputed that claim, and UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said last month that the resolution was the right one.
The full alliance of 23 OPEC countries will meet to review production policy by early 2023 in December in Vienna.