Saudi Arabia cuts oil output to lowest in 2 years, pledges more reductions

January 13, 2017

Abu Dhabi, Jan 13: Saudi Arabia has cut oil output to its lowest in almost two years, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on Thursday, as the world’s largest oil exporter leads OPEC’s drive to eradicate a global glut and prop up prices.

Saudi

Al-Falih said output had fallen below 10 million barrels per day — more than it had promised as part of a global output cut deal between OPEC and non-OPEC producers.

Al-Falih, speaking at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi, said output was “not significantly below” 10 million bpd currently and the Kingdom planned to make even deeper cuts in February.

This means Saudi Arabia has cut oil production by more than the 486,000 bpd it agreed to late last year under a global deal to curb production and stem a fall in oil prices.

Al-Falih also said he expected the oil market to tighten in two to three years, aided by the agreement of OPEC and non-OPEC producers late last year to curb production.

“We have been moving toward rebalancing the markets for some time,” Falih said.

“Even better, the pace of rebalancing will be accelerated by recent production agreements within OPEC and outside. I have confidence in these agreements to bring stability to the global markets.”

Falih predicted oil demand would grow by over 1 million barrels a day this year.

“I am confident that the combination of capping production by 25 countries and growth of demand will continue to balance and prices will respond accordingly,” he added.

OPEC and non-OPEC producers last month reached their first deal since 2001 to curtail oil output jointly by nearly 1.8 million bpd to help stem a fall in oil prices and ease a supply glut.

While Al-Falih said he did not have a specific oil price target, Iraqi oil minister Jabar Ali Al-Luaibi told reporters at the same event Iraq wanted to see prices of around $65 a barrel.

Brent crude prices were up 77 cents at $55.87 a barrel by 1230 GMT.

Al-Luaibi said Iraq had slashed its exports by 170,000 bpd and was cutting them further by 40,000 bpd this week. He said Iraq was committed to the success of the production-cut agreement “even though it should have been exempted.”

OPEC expects global oil inventories to fall by the second quarter of this year in response to the agreement, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said.

Kuwait has cut its oil exports by more than 133,000 bpd mainly to customers in North America and Europe while maintaining full exports to Asia, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essam Al-Marzouq said.

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November 15,2024

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Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has killed or captured 69 terrorists linked to the Israeli spy agency Mossad during a major counterterrorism drill in the country's southeast, its spokesman says.  

General Ahmad Shafaei, the spokesman for the “Martyrs of Security” drill, said Friday that a total of 23 terrorists have been killed and another 46 arrested in various clean-up operations ever since the IRGC Ground Force launched it in the Sistan and Baluchestan province on November 1.

Seven terrorists have also turned themselves in during the period.

“The undeniable fact about terrorists is that they rely on arrogant powers, particularly the intelligence service of the wicked and vicious Zionist regime," Shafaei said.

“Unfortunately, weapons and munitions at terrorists’ disposal are among the most sophisticated ones in the world. This accounts for their heavy dependence.” 

The official stated that several members of the disbanded terror teams were non-Iranian nationals, who had been hired by foreign intelligence agencies to carry out acts of sabotage and terror inside Iran.

In a most recent operation, six terrorists were arrested and four others were eliminated, three of whom were non-Iranians, he added. 

On October 26, ten members of Iran's law enforcement forces were killed in a terrorist attack in the Gohar Kuh district of Taftan in the Sistan and Baluchestan province.

The so-called Jaish al-Adl terrorist group claimed responsibility for the assault, which was one of the deadliest in the province in recent months.

The group has carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Iran, primarily in Sistan and Baluchestan.

Its tactics include the abduction of border guards as well as targeting civilians and police stations within the province to incite chaos and disorder.

In January, Iran launched a military operation during which the headquarters of the Pakistan-based terrorist group was targeted in missile strikes, destroying its infrastructure.

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November 12,2024

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The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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