OPEC And Russia Are Holding Off From Pumping More Oil After Saudi Attack

This image provided by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe and annotated by the source, shows damage to the infrastructure at at Saudi Aramco's Khurais oil field in Buqayq, Saudi Arabia. Image provided on Sept. 15. Photo: DigitalGlobe

Wall Street Journal: OPEC, Russia Hold Off Pumping More Oil After Saudi Attack

Saudi Arabia will tap into stocks, officials say, as they worry fellow OPEC members might overproduce.

OPEC and Russia are so far holding off pumping more oil to fill potential gaps in global supplies after an attack in Saudi Arabia over the weekend led to a major crude disruption, officials said.

Crude prices surged on Monday in the aftermath of a weekend attack on Saudi Arabia’s crude production infrastructure. Officials said the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, aimed to restore about a third of the disrupted output by day’s end on Monday.

Saudi Arabia held a series of calls with cartel members and other oil-producing allies over the weekend and told producers that they wouldn’t need to respond with additional output, Saudi and OPEC officials said. Saudi energy officials fear that other members might begin pumping too much and take away some of the kingdom’s market share, Saudi oil officials and advisers said. Saudi officials told cartel members that the kingdom would mitigate the outage by tapping into its reserves, the Saudi and OPEC officials said.

The strikes knocked out 5.7 million barrels of daily production, about half of Saudi capacity. One of the main targets of the attack was a large crude-processing plant in Abqaiq—the largest of its kind in the world.

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WNU Editor: I am sure that if Saudi Arabia is not able to resume production soon, Russia and other OPEC members are going to poach their customers.