Saudi Arabia’s crude exports fell sharply in August as the kingdom leads an effort by the OPEC+ alliance to curb output and raise oil prices.
Observed flows from the kingdom fell to about 5.6 million barrels a day, the lowest since March 2021, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That compares with the revised 6.3 million barrels per day in July. Shipments to most major destinations, including China and the US, plummeted to multi-year lows.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, are restricting supply in a bid to shore up the market, especially amid signs of lackluster demand in China, the biggest oil consumer. Since July, Saudi Arabia has pledged to implement a unilateral production cut of 1 million barrels per day on top of existing curbs.
Saudi officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on August oil exports. Friday starts the weekend in the country. The figures compiled by Bloomberg, which are preliminary, broadly match those of analyst firm Vortexa Ltd. and Kpler.
Flows to China, the kingdom’s primary market, fell to about 1.3 million barrels a day. It is the lowest seen since June 2020, in the early months of the pandemic, when oil demand plummeted globally. Saudi exports to Japan and South Korea in August fell to the lowest levels since Bloomberg began tracking them in 2017.
Westbound shipments also fell. Observed US loadings were just 81,000 barrels per day, the smallest volume seen in at least six years.
That may change, however, as the ships carrying the roughly 24 million barrels of Saudi crude they loaded last month have not yet indicated a final destination. This means that numbers for specific countries, particularly long-haul shipments, are likely to increase in the coming weeks.
Saudi Arabia wasn’t the only Middle Eastern energy giant to curb flows in August. Shipments from Kuwait, OPEC’s fifth-largest producer, fell to about 1.5 million barrels a day, the lowest since at least late 2016.
–With assistance from John Deane, Grant Smith, Prejula Prem and Julian Lee.
