Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, increased its prices for Asian buyers despite crude prices falling on Monday after producer group OPEC+ over the weekend agreed another accelerated boost to output.
State oil company Saudi Aramco raised the June official selling price for its flagship Arab Light crude by $0.20 to $1.40 a barrel above the average of Oman and Dubai prices, a pricing document from the producer showed.
The price increase follows two months of consecutive decreases and comes despite downward pressure on crude prices amid concerns about more supply coming into a market clouded by an uncertain demand outlook.
Members of OPEC+, which groups the de facto Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries with allies including Russia, agreed on Saturday to accelerate oil production hikes for a second consecutive month, raising output in June by 411,000 barrels per day (bpd).
That will take the combined hikes from the eight OPEC+ producers for April, May and June to a total of 960,000 bpd, representing a 44% unwinding of the 2.2 million bpd of voluntary cuts the group had in December agreed to phase out by September 2026.
(Reporting by Siyi Liu; Writing by Yousef Saba in Dubai and Anjana Anil in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens, Kirsten Donovan)