Saudi Arabia and its oil giant Aramco are looking to partner with other countries to expand the Kingdom’s strategic stockpile as the Gulf major sees oil demand increasing to three million barrels per day in the post-Iran war world.
CEO Amin Nasser, while interacting with the Al Arabiya Business TV, revealed the plan.
Nasser previously said Aramco’s incident response is now more than six times faster than the industry average, a positive development that helped Saudi recover its energy output to about eight million barrels a day in September, despite persistent disruptions (including militant attacks and the Strait of Hormuz closure) due to the Iran war.
Saudi’s daily oil output dropped below seven million barrels in the initial months of the Iran war, down from the pre-conflict capacity of over 10 million.
While Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have intensified missile and drone attacks against Aramco’s energy facilities and infrastructure, the energy giant, in response, has deployed drone-based inspections to assess damage while incidents are still unfolding, with some 90% of repair materials produced locally or held in local warehouses.
“The company is studying possible alternative export routes to the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and Suez,” Nasser said.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabian crude oil exports in August rose by about 7.9% from July to 4.451 million barrels per day, the highest level since March, data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Wednesday.
The exports rose despite oil production falling to a record low of 6.24 million bpd from 8.135 million bpd in July.
Saudi refinery crude throughput, however, dropped by 181,000 bpd to 2.297 million bpd in August from 2.478 million bpd the previous month, the JODI data showed.
Direct crude burning increased by 43,000 bpd to 604,097 bpd.
“Despite regional tensions, Saudi Arabia was able to further restore crude export volumes by leveraging terminals on both coasts,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.
Staunovo expects the recovery to continue into September and October.