ABU DHABI (AFP) - Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Noaimi said here that his country was ready to meet rising demand for crude to ease the surge in world prices.
"My message to the world (is) there's no shortage, there'll be no shortage, and we are willing to meet demand as it rises," he told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in the Emirati capital on Sunday.
"We are producing around 9.5" million barrels per day (mbpd), he said. "We plan to maintain spare capacity of 1.5 to two mbpd for the forseeable future."
Nuaimi said his country was ready to pump an additional 500,000 bpd but there were no takers because of the quality.
"We have 500,000 barrels a day extra capacity and we are ready to produce now but there are no buyers," he said.
"There's a difference between sour and sweet crude and what's on offer now is the light sour crude," Nuaimi said.
"There's no adequate conversion refineries in the world. Consuming nations need to build sufficient sophisticated refineries to be able to handle sour crude."
Saudi Arabia promised late last month to increase its oil production capacity to 11 million barrels per day within weeks in a bid to curb record prices.