Saudi Arabian oil supply to continue despite price

Saudi Arabia pledged to continue supplying customers with their oil needs and would persist with oil and gas exploration despite a fall in global oil prices.

“Over the past years high oil prices have positively influenced the Saudi economy and contributed to the completion of projects,” King Salman bin Abdulaziz said on Tuesday, Al Arabiya reported. Despite a fall in the price of crude, “operations for the exploration of oil and gas will continue,” he added.

The Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al Naimi previously stated that the country would cut oil supply only if external demand falls.

“Saudi Arabia will not reduce production unless customers tell us we do not want your crude, and that is not going happen because Saudi Arabia is the most reliable supplier worldwide,” Al Naimi said in a speech in Berlin on March 4.

Despite the fall in oil prices from $115 per barrel in June 2014 to $48 per barrel in January 2015, Al Naimi maintained that global demand is gradually rising and the price of oil is beginning to stabilise.