Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia increased its crude exports in June as it pumped at near-record-high levels while burning less petroleum for electricity than the same month last year, official data released on Thursday showed. Crude exports in June rose to 7.456 million barrels a day, the highest for the month of June since 2012, compared with 7.295 million barrels in May, according to figures provided by the kingdom to the Joint Organisations Data Initiative. The country’s new energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, pledged in June that Riyadh had no intention of flooding the market but, since then, its production has increased at a rate faster than it needs to meet domestic demand in the summer months. Saudi Arabia produced 10.550 million barrels in June, up from 10.270 million barrels a day in May, JODI data shows. It told the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that it boosted its […]