Saudi Aramco has approached several international oil services companies to assess the feasibility of capacity upgrades at some of its producing fields. A proposal to hike capacity from a cluster of fields is likely to be put forward to the company’s board in May in preparation for the anticipated surge in demand for OPEC oil after 2018, industry sources say. However, the kingdom is not expected to add new net capacity as it conducts reservoir management on a continuous basis, the sources say.
A senior Gulf source tells MEES that there has been no change in the kingdom’s policy and there are no plans to raise capacity. He also denies reports that the three key Gulf producers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE had agreed to cut their production in an effort to prop up oil prices, which have weakened despite heightened geopolitical risk in the Middle East and North Africa. “Any such decision will have to be made by OPEC as a whole and not by individual countries,” the source says. OPEC ministers are due to meet again in November to review output policy for the first half of 2015. (CONTINUED - 1406 WORDS)
