Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports fell by 278,000 barrels per day in August, despite historically high wellhead production, while volumes of shipped refined oil products rose to a record high, official data showed on Sunday. The OPEC heavyweight shipped 6.998 million bpd in August, down from 7.276 million bpd in July, figures published by the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed. The world’s biggest crude exporter trimmed its production by around 100,000 bpd in August pumping 10.265 million bpd, but still maintained high output levels in line with a strategy of defending market share. Monthly export figures are provided by Riyadh and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to JODI, which published them on its website. Saudi Arabia burns higher crude volumes to generate power for air conditioning during the hot summer months. It has also been feeding more crude to domestic refineries as […]