Saudi oil exports at historical low in June

The world's largest petroleum exporter, Saudi Arabia, saw its crude oil exports hit a record low of just under 5 million barrels a day (bpd) in June as the de facto leader of OPEC led the efforts of the OPEC + group in response to the Collapse in demand withhold a record amount of crude oil from the market. According to the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI), Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell 17.3 percent in June compared to May, to 4.98 million barrels per day (bpd). Since March of this year, Saudi crude oil exports have diverged sharply from the last five-year range, jumping to over 10 million bpd in April as the kingdom honored its promise to flood the market with oil following the collapse of the previous OPEC + deal. Saudi Arabia exported a record 10.237 million bpd in April 2020, up from 7.391 million bpd in March, JODI data showed earlier this year. In May, Saudi crude exports plunged from over 10 million bpd in the previous month to 6.02 million bpd after OPEC + reached a new agreement to prop up the market and clean up the flooding that built up while global demand was in the April slumped by 20 million bpd. June was also the month that Saudi Arabia voluntarily cut its oil production by an additional 1 million bpd on top of the 2.5 million bpd it was supposed to cut. Total Saudi Arabian petroleum exports, including crude oil and petroleum products, continued to decline month-on-month in June - by 1.41 million bpd to 6.07 million bpd, according to data from the JODI database, which collects self-reports from 114 countries . Despite easing OPEC + cuts from August 1, Saudi Arabia has signaled that it will not rush to significantly increase its crude oil exports this month.