As if oil market participants haven’t had enough conflicting market forces to digest over the past week, reports that Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production surprisingly dropped in July by around 200,000 bpd from June further confounded the market and sent oil prices rising on Monday. Last week, several surveys of OPEC’s crude oil production in July showed that the cartel is pumping at high rates, and Saudi Arabia is nearing its production record. But on Friday, Saudi sources and OPEC sources told news agencies that the Saudi oil production was not even close to record figures—and it actually dropped last month compared to June. The Saudis pumped 10.29 million bpd in July, Saudi sources told S&P Global Platts on Friday. On the same day, two OPEC sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production in July was 10.29 million bpd. According to OPEC’s secondary sources, the ones the […]