AlQa'dah 23, 1433, Oct 9, 2012, SPA -- Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a surplus production capacity representing a reserve that can meet the current or future demand in the international market, adding that it is important to keep oil prices subject to demand factors and prevent any shortage in supply. This is what is being carried out by the Kingdom, other Gulf Cooperation Council countries and other producing countries, he said. The minister made the remarks in a press statement following the conclusion of a meeting of the Petroleum Cooperation Committee of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held earlier today at the General Secretariat of the GCC in Riyadh. Commenting on a proposal by Oman to create a common GCC Energy and gas market, the minister explained that such many topics were referred for deep studies by the committees specialized in the oil markets and prices of derivatives including the oil strategy, the media strategy and all of them were referred to these committees for consideration. He pointed out that making prices of petroleum derivatives among the GCC countries similar to each other has been referred to study by the competent committees which will be concerned with trying to make the prices similar. He stressed that Saudi Arabia has a surplus of oil production and has the ability to meet demand in the event of any necessity for it. He stated that the Kingdom has the capacity to produce 12 million barrels of oil per day but that the global demand does not need it now. He added, if "we produced about 10 million barrels, we will have 2.5 million barrels as reserves." --More
