Saudi Arabia escalated its oil price war with Russia on Tuesday, with its state-owned company pledging to supply a record 12.3 million barrels a day next month, a massive production hike to flood the market. The output increase — more than 25% up from last month — puts Aramco supply above its maximum sustainable capacity, indicating that the kingdom is even tapping its strategic inventories to dump as much crude, as quickly as possible, on the market. In February, Saudi Arabia produced about 9.7 million barrels a day.
It’s the latest maneuver in what’s set to be a long and bitter price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. On Monday benchmark oil prices fell more than 20%, the largest one-day drop since the Gulf War in 1991, creating mayhem in global equity and bond markets.