Leading OPEC producer Saudi Arabia said it had made a renewed effort to deflate record high world oil prices by upping crude output again. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, speaking ahead of a Wednesday Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting, said the cartel deserved credit for knocking prices down from a $49-a-barrel peak in August. Naimi said Riyadh now was producing 9.5 million barrels per day (bpd), more than one million barrels daily in excess of its official quota and up 200,000 bpd from earlier this summer. "The reason we are doing it is to bring the price down. I think we have been very successful as Saudi and as OPEC to lessen the upward pressure on prices," the minister told reporters on his arrival in Vienna. Naimi said he saw no reason to raise formal OPEC quotas to reflect actual production of nearly eight percent over the group's official 26-million bpd output limit. OPEC is now producing two million bpd over the quota. What is the point of raising production? The price now is not being affected by production but by other factors, he said.
