Saudi Arabia Warns On Rising Oil Price

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    • Saudi Arabia Warns On Rising Oil Price

      Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries won't let global oil markets get too tight, an indication the world's biggest crude exporter won't be shy about putting more barrels into the market to quell runaway oil prices.

      "We will never allow [the oil market to] get to the point where it puts too much pressure on prices," Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali Naimi told journalists here ahead of OPEC's Wednesday production policy meeting.


      Mr. Naimi's comments came as U.S. oil prices again topped $80 a barrel, above the kingdom's preferred range of $75 to $80 a barrel marked last year by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. On the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday, light, sweet crude futures for April delivery gained $1.90, or 2.4%, to $81.70 a barrel.


      "Mr. Naimi is reminding the market that the kingdom's policy of meeting customers' needs is still in place and any major and sustained divergence from the preferred $70 to $80 price zone can be headed off as and when necessary," said Bill Farren-Price of consultancy Petroleum Policy Intelligence.

      A Saudi oil official here said the kingdom "will supply what its customers demand."

      As OPEC's leading member and the moderate voice that keeps the group's more hawkish nations in check, Saudi Arabia sits on a mountain of spare production capacity of more than four million barrels a day that it could discharge into world markets to damp prices. The kingdom has helped rally other OPEC states over the past year around the notion—which isn't formal OPEC policy—of a preferred price level of between $70 and $80 a barrel.