NEW YORK — Oil dropped the most in more than three months in New York as Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude-exporting country, said it can boost output immediately to stave off shortages.
Futures fell 2.3 percent after Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in Doha, Qatar, that the kingdom has increased production and can pump as much as 25 percent more crude if needed. A U.S. government report today will show stockpiles rose for a fifth week, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
Oil for April delivery fell $2.48 to settle at $105.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the biggest one-day decline since Dec. 14. Futures are up 6.9 percent this year. The April contract expired Tuesday
.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest oil producer, has output capacity of 12.5 million barrels a day and will pump about 9.9 million barrels a day this month and in April. The global market is oversupplied by as much as 2 million barrels a day and inventories are rising, al-Naimi said.
