Saudi Arabia has cast doubt on the future of the global oil market after abandoning plans to grow its crude production capacity by 1m barrels a day.
The world’s biggest exporter signalled a big change in policy by ordering the state oil company, Saudi Aramco, to drop plans to expand its maximum production capacity to 13m barrels a day by 2027.
The decision has raised questions over the future of global oil demand growth, weeks after an influential report found that a worldwide peak in crude demand could come before the end of this decade.
The International Energy Agency said that the faltering global economy would slow the world’s growing demand for oil from this year, before the take-up of electric vehicles in the second half of the decade causes consumption to reach a peak.