Saudi Arabia raising oil production

Saudi Arabia cut back from 9.6 million in early 2006 to 8.6 million in April 2007. They plan to push it back to 9.7 million barrel per day, from current 9 million barrel per day -- by July. They plan to have drastic increase to 12.5 million barrel per day by end of the year, however the Bloomberg reported different timing(end of 2009?). If necessary, they will push to 15 million barrel per day. I would suspect some other oil producing nations will add another 1 million barrel per day though they opposed Saudi's plan. They need the revenue badly, cutting production at lower price will not help. With that kind of supply plan, we can find out real soon whether high oil price really caused by Index Speculator. Is this the "positive development that shows up at the darkest eleventh hour" in my yesterday entry? Well, will find out soon, as soon as I wake up tomorrow.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia will in the near future increase its daily oil production to 9.7 million barrels from 9 million in a move to counter the sharp rise in international oil prices, Saudi King Abdullah said Sunday.

In addition, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Petroleum Ali I. Al-Naimi announced that the country would invest in its oil projects to allow the nation to produce 12.5 million barrels per day by the end of the year.

King Abdullah's announcement came at the end of the Jeddah energy summit, where he also called for OPEC to set aside $1 billion for a strategy to ease the oil price crisis. He said $500 million should be given to developing nations to help them get the energy they need.

The 9.7 million daily production would be the most Saudi Arabia produced since 1981.