18.04.201822:21:00UTC+00OPEC’s Saudi Arabia Seeks Oil Price as High as $100 per Barrel

Saudi Arabia is setting its eyes on a crude price as high as $80 or even $100 per barrel, according to three industry sources, an indication that the top oil exporter will not push for changes to an OPEC supply-reducing deal despite the agreement's original target is close to being achieved.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, joined by Russia and other producers started to reduce production in January 2017 in a push to eradicate a glut in the global markets. They have prolonged the historic deal until December 2018 and will convene in June to review policy.

OPEC is close to achieving the original objective of the agreement- reducing industrialized countries' oil stockpiles to their five-year average. But there is no indication yet that Saudi Arabia and its allies want to taper the supply cut.

Over the last year, Saudi Arabia has become OPEc's leading supporter of measures to bolster prices, a shift from tis more moderate view in earlier years. Iran, once a strong OPEC price hawk, is now targeting lower prices than Saudi Arabia.

Industry sources have associated Saudi Arabia's change in stance to its desire to prop up the valuation of state oil company Aramco before the kingdom's planned sale of a minority stake in an initial public offering.

The supply cuts have helped bolster oil prices this year to $73 per barrel, the highest since November 2014. Oil started to decline from more than $100 per barrel- a level that Saudi Arabia endorsed in 2012- in mid-2014, when increasing supply from competing sources started to saturate the market.