Saudi Arabia Tells Refineries To Expect Fewer Deliveries Beginning in January -- December 10, 2016

A big "thank you" to a reader for sending me the link.

Link here. Data points:

• Saudi Arabia to reduce deliveries of crude oil to Europe and North America
• Asian refineries: so far largely spared
• Asia: in fact, three of the region's refiners said they were told they would receive the extra volumes they requested
• Saudi Arabia recently increased oil production to an all-time high of nearly 10.7 million bopd
• has since reduced production to 10.5 million bopd
• one year ago: 1.3 million bopd

Two comments:

• in the early days of the blog, analysts often stated that Saudi Arabia could/would produce 12 million bopd; I never accepted that; we now see that the all-time high was "nearly" 10.7 million bopd, not significantly different than 1.3 million bopd one year ago (remember previous postings that suggest hundreds of thousands of bopd "unaccounted" for)
• best way to track Saudi's comment regarding North American imports: US Saudi crude oil imports; has hardly changed

An old graphic, frequently posted: