Saudis Reportedly Laying Plans to Stay at Top of Oil Market
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, plans to spend $15 billion in the next six years to maintain its supremacy in the oil market, regional bankers and oil industry analysts said today.
“Saudi Arabia wants to remain a market leader in the 1990s,” one oil industry manager said. “It also does not want its share within OPEC to erode as world demand grows.”
Oil industry sources in the Gulf said the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco) wants to push the kingdom’s oil output capacity to 10 million barrels per day by 1995 from the current 6.5 million.
Oil industry analysts said Saudi Arabia’s plan was a clear warning to some of its OPEC partners and to independent producers who might be planning expensive oil development schemes beyond the year 2000. “Would you contemplate a new investment in the North Sea if you heard the Saudis will double what they are producing now by 1995?” an oil industry executive said.
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