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Saudis announce oil production increases - again
Jerome a Paris, European Tribune
Saudi Arabia has announced, once again, that it was increasing production:

Saudi Arabia confirmed it would pump 9.7m barrels a day next month, an increase of 200,000 and the highest level in nearly 30 years, as it repeated its standard offer of extra barrels if customers demanded them.

The kingdom also reiterated its promise to expand production capacity, noting that it expects to achieve 12.5m b/d next year and could add an additional 2.5m barrels - if needed - after that with a massive investment programme.

And of course, we can believe them!

Saudi Arabia's oil production reaches 10.8 mln bpd

RIYADH, July 31 [2007] (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia's crude oil production capacity has reached 10.8 million barrels per day (bpd), the country's state oil company Saudi Aramco announced Monday.

(...) Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer and exporter and plans to raise its production capacity to 12.5 million bpd in 2009.

... So we see that the Saudis seem to be regularly announcing or promising production increases to supply the market - and yet always seem to have production around 9.5 mb/d after such increases (I'll explain the higher numbers in a sec).

And it's no wonder: that's where their production has been for the past several years.
(22 June 2008)
Also at Daily Kos. Related post at The Oil Drum: Saudi Arabia Annnounces They Will Produce More Oil

The devil is in the production details of Saudi Arabia
Rembrandt Koppelaar, The Oil Drum
Yesterday we have heard announcements by Ali-Naimi, the oil minister of Saudi Arabia, regarding future production capacity increments. We are to believe that Saudi Arabia will produce 12.5 million barrels per day at the end of 2009 and a potential 15 million barrels per day in the coming decade. How should such announcements be valued? Is this achievable? What is meant with production capacity? What type of liquids is Saudi Arabia referring to when talking about oil? In this post I attempt to answer these questions.
(23 June 2008)

Saudi's Oil Fields on Viagra?
CNBC
Saudi Arabia has long been the world’s preeminent oil producer and the kingdom’s royal rulers want to keep it that way.

But there is another possible narrative to the kingdom’s likely future - and ours too - which is far less comforting.

Rather than a petroleum stud with enough hydrocarbon juice to carry the world gradually into some kind of greener, post-petroleum energy era, Saudi Arabia may be far closer to running dry than we realize, because of years of overexploitation.
(20 June 2008)
Column is posted under Sharon Epperson's heading, but was posted by Kenneth Stier. Related: It’s Put-Up or Shut-Up Time for the Kingdom at Burnick's Global Market Beat.

Saudi Arabia - opening the tap?
Heading Out, The Oil Drum
One wonders, sometimes, why folk would want to get into political office these days, given the pervasive problems starting to arise from the end of cheap and easy to produce oil and natural gas. The rising costs of providing fuel for everything from school buses to emergency responders eats away at one end of a budget. The demands for wage increases to help employees cope with rising fuel and food prices nibbles away both at another part of the budget, but also at public and labor relations. And then there is the cost to repair and maintain the existing infrastructure, let alone make provision for future alternate choices for power and transportation. Sectors of the population, such as truckers, are becoming less shy in complaining about their problems, as unemployment bites into their numbers.

Fortunately there are legislators and candidates for office that do understand both the problems and the complexity in finding answers where options are not immediately responsive or popular. For the rest it often becomes easier to try and unify a constituency by invoking an enemy -someone who can, by their actions, be blamed for constituents’ problems. Sadly the world’s history has been filled with stories of such scapegoats, as an easy way of switching attention. Today it is possible that as oil prices rise, both OPEC and Saudi Arabia may become the villain in articles and political slogans.

... Categorizing the response of Saudi Arabia and OPEC to market pressures is not an easy undertaking, and has been the subject of considerable debate here and elsewhere. To begin there are the different grades of crude that are available
(20 June 2008)