Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal told Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi in an open letter that the kingdom won’t be able to raise production capacity to 15 million barrels of crude a day as planned, and that he disagrees with him over the impact of U.S. shale gas output.
The prince published the letter today on Twitter, saying there’s a “clear and increasing decline” in demand for crude from members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is now pumping at less than its production capacity as consumers limit oil imports, Alwaleed said.
“We disagree with your excellency on what you said and we see that raising North American shale gas production is an inevitable threat,” the billionaire prince, founder of Kingdom Holding Co., said in the letter.
Al-Naimi said in Vienna on May 31 that he isn’t concerned about the increasing production of oil from shale formations in the U.S., nor does it represent the first time the OPEC has faced a surge in output from outside the group.
Alwaleed also said that Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil to fund 92 percent of this year’s fiscal budget “is contradicting many of the state’s plans to diversify its income sources.”Two story lines in case you missed it. The prince says:
- Saudi's ability to raise production capacity is limited; and,
- yes, US shale oil production is a "threat" to Saudi
I opined that Saudi's ability to raise production capacity was limited quite awhile ago. I think the Prince speaks from a non-political view, whereas the Saudi oil minister is a politician. I would place my bets with the Prince.
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