Saudi Arabia is developing plans to raise oil production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from an existing 11 million bpd, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi has said.

Naimi also said that capacity longer term in the world’s biggest oil producing nation could be lifted as high as 15 million bpd.
“This all demonstrates our desire to maintain a reasonable spare capacity of no less than 1.5 million bpd, “ he said.
Saudi Arabia recently brought new fields onstream to lift sustainable capacity by 500,000 bpd to 11 million bpd, but has made no decision yet on whether world demand is sufficient to go beyond that.
Actual output in recent months has been running at 9.5 million bpd.
“In the longer term we are studying scenarios to raise production to 15 million bpd should global demand dictate it,” Naimi said.
“This year, we increased our total production capacity from 10.5 to 11.0 million bpd,” Naimi said.
“The decision to invest in added production capacity on this scale reflects our belief that demand for Saudi oil will continue to increase through the coming years,” the minister added.