Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month, the kingdom’s oil minister told U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, according to Ban’s spokesman.
The U.N. secretary-general met with Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi. A spokesman who is traveling with Ban said in an e-mail that the U.N. chief said al-Naimi told him that Saudi Arabia would increase oil production by 200,000 barrels a day from June to July. In May, the kingdom increased its production by 300,000.
By July, production should be at 9.7 million barrels a day, spokesman Farhan Haq said.
Ban also said Saudi Arabia understands that the current price of oil, which topped $139 per barrel this month, is not normal, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Saudi Arabia is concerned sustained high oil prices will eventually slacken the appetite for oil, affecting the kingdom in the long run. It has called for a meeting of oil producing and consuming countries next Sunday in Jiddah.
