According to the Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI), Saudi Arabia’s commercial crude stockpiles grew to 326.6 million barrels in August 2015, thus reaching a fresh 13-year high.
The JODI’s report reads that exports dropped to 7 million barrels per day in August from 7.28 million bpd in July. The crude stocks stood at 320.2 million barrels in July.
It was unveiled in October that Shell, Total, Eni, and Exxon raised their purchases of the Saudi Arabian crude for their refineries in Western Europe and the Mediterranean, thus replacing the Russian crude. Saudi Arabia plans to use warehouses in Gdansk to store oil and it will enable Riyadh to faster supply Europe with crude through ports in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The Saudi Arabia inventories stand at their highs since May 2015. In particular, oil production hit the highest level of 10.56 million bpd in June. Later, the output slowed down to 10.36 million bpd in July and to 10.27 million bpd in August. In September, crude production totaled 10.23 million bpd.
