Rising fuel costs, expensive EVs making CNG a welcome relief, alternate fuel for mobility: Report
Rising fuel costs and prohibitively expensive electric vehicles are making compressed natural gas (CNG) “a welcome relief and alternate fuel” for mobility for Indian consumers, according to a report by NRI (Nomura Research Institute) Consulting & Solutions. CNG vehicle sales continued to grow in FY22, rising by 55 per cent to 2,65,383 units in FY22 compared to 1,71,288 units in FY21, as per NRI’s report titled ‘Path to clean mobility: Increasing penetration of NGVs in India’. In the last five years, the penetration of CNG vehicles has also increased, and its parc has grown at a CAGR of 5.3 per cent to 37.97 lakh units as of March 2022 from 30.90 lakh units in March 2018, the report said. “With increased differential TCO (total cost of ownership) benefits compared to other fuels, CNG is gaining more prominence among consumer preference post-BS-VI. The technology is now well established in India with major OEMs concentrating to bring in a range of cost-efficient and fuel-efficient CNG variants,” NRI said in a statement. The report pointed out that favourable factors, such as improvement in CNG fuelling infrastructure and supporting regulatory environment, are helping the growth of CNG vehicles. “With fuel prices soaring and electric vehicles becoming prohibitively expensive for most Indians, vehicles that run on compressed natural gas could be considered as a welcome relief and an alternative for mobility,” NRI said. The expansion of the CGD (city gas distribution) network and an increasing number of CNG stations is expected to encourage the proliferation of NGVs (natural gas vehicles), it added. “The immense volume and favourable conditions of the Indian automobile market give an opportunity to promote widespread adoption of NGVs in India,” NRI Consulting & Solutions Senior Partner & Group Head Ashim Sharma said. However, he pointed out that “higher gas prices will exacerbate the CGD industries’ already unfavourable economics, limiting network expansion and negatively impacting consumer experience. The government, industry and CGD companies must all work together for India’s NGV market to thrive in the future”. According to the report, bio-CNG provides an effective solution to environmental issues like stubble burning. However, the uncertainty of biomass availability poses a challenge. Yet, India’s bio-CNG generation potential, once fully realised, can meet the current natural gas demand of the country and can power 54 lakh additional vehicles, it added.
How China Could Spark A Major Reversal For Oil Prices
The huge discrepancy between China’s massive economic growth and its minimal oil and gas reserves made it the big global backstop bid for crude oil and many other commodities over the past 20 years or so. According to figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), China surpassed the U.S. as the largest annual gross crude oil importer in the world in 2017, having become the world’s largest net importer of total petroleum and other liquid fuels in 2013. Since the full breakout of the COVID-19 virus across the world in 2020, China’s strictly-enforced ‘zero-COVID’ policy has damaged its economic growth engine and its appetite for the oil and gas used to fuel it. There have been murmurings that this policy may be relaxed but these have not proven correct and are unlikely to be in the near future, leaving the big bid sidelined in the oil markets, and a plethora of other bearish factors set to dramatically push oil prices down. At the outset of March, China saw the largest wave of COVID infections since those across Wuhan in early 2020, with the new cases focused across its northeast and coastal regions, mostly in the Jilin and Shandong provinces. At that point, although official rhetoric did not signal any softening in the zero-COVID containment strategy in the near term, the previous December had seen a refinement of the strategy to one incorporating the idea of ‘dynamic clearing’. “This provided local governments more flexibility in imposing restrictions, allowing daily increases in symptomatic cases to be capped at around 200 on a national basis,” Eugenia Fabon Victorino, head of Asia Strategy for SEB, in Singapore, told Oilprice.com. Even back then, though, she added, there were clear limits to this flexibility, with China’s still-aggressive approach to tracing possible exposures to the virus putting more than 184,000 individuals under medical observation in isolation within two weeks or so of that new March outbreak. Soft though oil prices looked at that stage, they looked considerably softer still with news at the end of March that the economic powerhouse city of Shanghai, population 26 million, had been placed in a two-stage lockdown. This was then followed in early April by news that the authorities in other cities, including Ningbo (population 4.2 million) and the capital Beijing (22 million) had begun implementing limited restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. Again, at that point, there had been hopes of a softening in the zero-COVID approach, stoked by the publication in the second week of April by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) of a guide that outlined measures for quarantining at home. These measures seemed to indicate the possibility that people suffering from very mild symptoms or none at all, but having tested positive for COVID, might be able to quarantine at home rather than having to go to centralized state-run facilities to do so. Hopes that such measures might be introduced, however, were also dashed when the CCDC in a later clarification simply reiterated the previous set of strict policies. At that point, the bearish effect on global crude oil prices of the ‘China COVID’ factor was highlighted by OPEC in its report wherein it cut its global oil demand forecast for 2022 by 480,000 barrels per day (bpd). At almost the same time, the same reasoning was given by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the lowering of its global demand outlook for 2022 by 260,000 bpd. Even then, with Brent crude around the US$110.00 per barrel (pb) level, and pervasive talk of a potentially bullish-for-prices ban on Russian oil in Europe whistling through the markets, the IEA further warned that even though crude oil prices had come back down from recent highs they still: “Remain troublingly high and are a serious threat to the global economic outlook.” These actions and comments were made even before China stepped up its counter-COVID programs, with the end of April seeing announcements of mass testing for the virus being rolled out across Beijing, and other cities, including Hangzhou (population 12.2 million). By the onset of May, some analysts had calculated that the effect of ongoing lockdowns in China was reducing crude oil demand from the country by around one million barrels per day, with no indication of when or how this decline would end. Even before the transmission of COVID surged in mid-March, several major banks had regarded China’s 2022 economic growth target of ‘about 5.5 percent’ as too ambitious and the big data releases in April showed they were right. April’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – the key indicator that shows the state of the country’s manufacturing activity (with a reading above 50 showing an expansion and below 50 marking a contraction) came in at just 47.4 for the month, the lowest level since February 2020. China’s own National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) senior statistician, Zhao Qinghe, stated that: “The production and operation of… enterprises have been greatly affected [by COVID-related actions].” Late last week, leading independent global economic and investment strategy research house TS Lombard (TSL), told Oilprice.com that it believes that China’s economy will likely contract this quarter and slashed its full-year 2022 China economic growth forecast to just 3.3 percent (although it thinks that for political reasons the official report from Beijing will be of 2022 economic growth close to 5.0 percent). Although the current Omicron wave of COVID appears to have peaked and the number of areas classified as high/medium risk has fallen in recent days from their recent highs, it remains the case that mobility remains low and stimulus measures are less effective under zero-COVID conditions and structural headwinds, according to TSL. “Beijing is firmly committed to ‘zero-COVID’, making further lockdowns almost inevitable during the remainder of 2022,” Rory Green, head of China and Asia research at TS Lombard, in London, told Oilprice.com last week. “Healthcare limitations, including the low vaccination rate and insufficient numbers of hospitals and staff, combined with politics ahead of the Q4/22
Global oil firms report huge profits but Indian marketers are left high and dry
Indian oil refiners are staring at huge losses as they have failed to pass on the higher costs of crude to fuel consumers, even as global energy producers report outsized profits in the March quarter. A Mint compilation of earnings data reported by global oil giants shows some have recorded their best profit figures in years, even decades, as crude oil prices soared after the Russia-Ukraine war broke out. Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, is now neck-and-neck with Apple as the most valuable company globally and is ranked on top as of Friday’s closing. The company also reported more than 80% growth in its profit in the March quarter. Oil majors ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, and ConocoPhillips have also reported a year-on-year (y-o-y) earnings growth of 80-255%. National producers from China and Russia are not behind. Brent crude prices crossed $100 per barrel in late February and remained above that mark for almost throughout March. The prices have further surged in May after the EU’s proposed tightening of sanctions on Russia. On Friday, Brent crude was trading around $113 per barrel. Indian oil producers Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) and Oil India are also likely to report strong quarterly earnings this week, reaping the benefits of high oil prices. However, the companies down the value chain, which engage in midstream and downstream operations, are staring at sharp losses. This is because fuel prices during the election season, from November 2021 to March 2022, remained unchanged. Fuel retailers such as Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL), and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd who were unable to pass on the high cost to consumers, they are taking a hit. IOCL and HPCL reported a 31.4% and 40.5% decline, respectively, in their March quarter earnings. Fuel retailers are allowed to set rates, but they have so far shied away from increasing prices commensurate with the rise in crude oil prices. Bringing some relief, the Union government, on Saturday, reduced central excise duty on petrol by ₹8 per litre and on diesel by ₹6 a litre. This would give fuel retailers some leeway to cope up with the volatility in crude oil prices and could lead to a reduction in their under-recoveries. If the government allows the upstream companies to reap the benefits of the high crude oil prices, it will definitely be very positive for ONGC and Oil India, said Swarnendu Bhushan, senior group vice-president and oil and gas analyst at Motilal Oswal Financial Services However, fuel retailers are losing ₹8.8 per litre on petrol and ₹12.9 on diesel. This could mean that profitability of Indian oil marketing companies will not be in sync with similar companies in the free-market regime abroad, Bhushan said. “So will the government allow these OMCs to take this whole burden of under-recovery or ask ONGC and Oil India or maybe GAIL to participate in this sharing of under-recovery? That is the big question,” Bhushan said.
ONGC starts trading on Indian Gas Exchange
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Monday started trading on the Indian Gas Exchange. With this, ONGC has become the first Exploration and Production (E&P) company in India to trade domestic gas on the Indian Gas Exchange. The first online trade was made on 23 May 2022 by ONGC Director (Onshore) In-charge Marketing Anurag Sharma on India’s first automated national level Gas Exchange, IGX. The gas traded is from ONGC Krishna Godavari 98/2 block, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas said in a statement. After the deregulation of the gas pricing ecosystem in 2000-21, ONGC has prepared itself to reap the benefits. The quantity sold by ONGC through the Gas Exchange will be enhanced slowly, it added.
Petrol under-recovery at Rs 13, diesel Rs 24; Reliance-BP says operations unsustainable
The joint venture of Reliance Industries Ltd and supermajor BP – has told the government that fuel retailing for the private sector in India has become unsustainable after market-controlling public sector firms frequently froze petrol and diesel prices at rates way below the cost, sources said. Despite a surge in oil prices, state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) first froze petrol and diesel rates for a record 137 days beginning early November 2021 when five states including Uttar Pradesh went to the polls, and last month again went into a hiatus that is now 47 days old. “They (Reliance BP Mobility Ltd) has written to the petroleum ministry over the fuel pricing issue,” a highly placed source in the government, who didn’t want to be quoted, told reporters here. While RBML is scaling down its retail operations to cut some of the Rs 7 billion loss it is incurring every month, Russia’s Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy has raised prices of petrol and diesel by up to Rs 3 a litre over and above the PSU rates, to cover for some losses. The government over the weekend cut excise duty on petrol by Rs 8 per litre and by Rs 6 a litre on diesel. This reduction was passed on to the consumers and not adjusted against the under-recovery or losses oil firms make on selling petrol and diesel. Two sources aware of the matter said RBML contends that PSU oil marketing companies control over 90 per cent of the market and are the price-setters, leaving no room for private fuel retailers in fixation of the retail selling price of petrol and diesel. PSUs have not increased fuel prices in line with escalating international crude prices eventually leading to huge under-recoveries (losses) for all fuel retailers since February 2022. As of May 16, 2022, net under-recoveries in the industry were Rs 13.08 per litre for petrol and Rs 24.09 per litre for diesel. The top source, quoted in the first instance, said the ministry is going to reply to RBML, but refused to say what it is going to say. A top ministry official said petrol and diesel prices are decided by the PSU oil companies after considering not just the international oil prices but also gains from other businesses such as petrochemicals and oil refining. “Reliance is exporting diesel to Europe and other countries at highly lucrative prices but rationing supplies for its petrol pumps,” the official said. An industry official however said the inference ministry is drawing is incorrect. Reliance owns and operates two refineries, including one only meant for exports, at Jamnagar in Gujarat. BP has no equity shareholding in them. RBML is an equal joint venture of Reliance and BP with separate legal identity and separate financial books. RBML buys fuel at market price from Reliance as well as other oil companies to supply to its 1,459 petrol pumps. “It is like saying that windfall profits that oil producer ONGC is making on spurt in oil and gas prices should be used to help its subsidiary HPCL sell petrol and diesel at highly subsidised rates,” he said. The petroleum ministry spokesperson did not reply to an e-mail sent for comments even after three days. An e-mail sent to RBML too remained unanswered. A spokesperson of Nayara Energy, which has 6,568 petrol pumps in the country, acknowledged having raised fuel prices. “In recent times, several factors beyond our control have led to an unprecedented increase in crude oil and product prices. The domestic price situation caused an additional shift of volume from institutional business to retail, aggravating the impact of the currently unfavourable retail business environment. “Nayara Energy, since the beginning of the year has been absorbing a significant part of the substantial drop in margins,” the spokesperson said. To reduce the impact in the long run and provide a sustainable solution, “there is a nominal price increase across our retail fuel stations,” the spokesperson added. IOC, BPCL and HPCL own 74,647 out of 83,027 petrol pumps in the country. Industry sources said the market practices of PSU OMCs are contrary to the objective of promoting healthy competition and creating the right climate for investments in the fuel retailing sector when petrol pricing was deregulated in 2010 and diesel in 2014. Private fuel retailers including Jio-bp — the brand under which RBML retails fuel — that are making investments in the fuel retailing sector are staring at a difficult investment environment. Under-recoveries will not only limit their ability to make further investments but also continue to cause severe hardship and financial duress, they said. Seven new private retailers have taken marketing authorization for fuel retailing after a relaxed fuel retailing policy was announced in 2019. They are facing severe hardship and financial duress due to the impact of unprecedented under-recoveries on sales of petrol and diesel, they said. Private retailers want PSU oil marketing companies to adopt the free market-determined pricing principles, facilitating daily revision until under-recoveries are nullified. Alongside the reduction in central excise, the state government should also cut VAT and shift from ad valorem taxation to specific taxation, they said adding without these steps the private sector will be driven out of the fuel retailing business just like in 2008 when they shut shop after being unable to match highly subsidised petrol and diesel of PSU oil firms.
India set to be leader in green hydrogen: Petroleum Minister Puri at Davos
India is more conscious of going for green energy than any other country in the world, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday. He said special emphasis is being given on green hydrogen, biofuel blending and exploration and production of biofuel from alternative sources. Puri asserted that India would eventually become a leader in the green hydrogen space. The target of 20 per cent of ethanol blending has been brought forward from 2030 to 2025 and it would be definitely achieved, he said. Puri, also Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, said India responded quickly and effectively when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world and one of the most important decisions was to fast-track vaccine development and manufacturing on a war footing. “Whatever vaccine manufacturing capacity India had earlier, had almost got dismantled during the 2004-2014 period,” Puri said, while emphasising that one of the most important decisions taken by the Modi government after the pandemic hit the world was to ramp up the vaccine manufacturing at an unprecedented speed. The minister said he doesn’t want to sound political on this. “While we have seen pandemics before, when this Covid-19 pandemic hit us, it was more reminiscent of Spanish Flu due to the amount of destruction it caused across the world,” he said. Speaking at a session on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 here, Puri also talked about various transformational changes that have happened after 2014 during the Narendra Modi government.
How China Is Attempting To Control Middle East Oil Chokepoints
Oman occupies an extraordinarily significant geographical position in the world and thus is of equally significant political importance to the two global power blocs: the U.S. and its allies on the one hand, and the China-Russia axis and its allies on the other. The Sultanate has long coastlines along the Gulf of Oman and along the Arabian Sea, away from the extremely politically sensitive Strait of Hormuz, through which passes at least one third of the world’s crude oil supplies. These coastlines offer largely unfettered access to the markets of South Asia, West Asia, and East Africa, as well as to those of its neighbors in the Middle East. For these reasons, Oman is a key logistical land and sea node in China’s multi-generational power-grab project, ‘One Belt, One Road’, and, by default, in the U.S.’s efforts to counter Beijing’s advances in this regard. Oman has long sought to play one superpower off against the other but with an imminent visit to Muscat of Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, according to sources close to the Petroleum Ministry in Tehran spoken to last week by Oilprice.com, China’s final push for dominance may be nearing its conclusion. Over and above China’s strategic interest in Oman, Iran has urgent business to conclude with the Sultanate itself, and this is to do, nominally at least, with natural gas. The chief executive officer of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), Majid Chegeni, stated in March that Iran is willing and able to export natural gas to Oman, for which there already exists some infrastructure to do so, as there is with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Such a deal, though, as with all of the similar gas deals struck by Iran for gas exports in the region and analyzed in-depth in my new book on the global oil markets, ties in to Tehran’s ambition to increase its leverage over those countries willing to sign the deals by concomitantly tying them into a regional power grid controlled by Iran. This, in turn, is part of the ongoing attempt by the China-Russia axis – executed in the Middle East principally by Iran – to stoke a true resurgence across the region of a new ‘Pan Arabist’ movement, as highlighted recently by Oilprice.com. The other side of this latest Iranian push, spearheaded by Raisi, is to finalize the long-stalled idea of finishing the pipeline links between the two countries. This will allow for a dramatic increase in gas exports from Iran to Oman but also, and much more importantly from Iran’s perspective, will also allow Tehran to utilize at least 25 percent of Oman’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) capabilities to allow it to realize its long-term target of becoming a world-leading LNG exporter. This pipeline plan was part of a broader cooperation deal made between Oman and Iran in 2013, extended in scope in 2014, and fully ratified in August 2015 that was centered on Oman’s importing at least 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year (bcm/y) from Iran for 25 years beginning in 2017 (equating to just less than 1 billion cubic feet per day and worth around US$60 billion at the time). The target for this was then changed to 43 bcm/y to be imported, albeit for a shorter period, of 15 years, and then finally to at least 28 bcm/y for a minimum period of 15 years. According to a statement at the time of the signing of the 2014 memorandum of understanding on the deal from the then-managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC), Mehran Amir-Moeini, the Iranian company was already working on the different contracts’ mechanisms for the key phases of the project, including the gas receiving facilities in Oman. Specifically, the land section of the project would comprise around 200 kilometers of 56-inch pipeline (to be constructed in Iran), to run from Rudan to Mobarak Mount in the southern Hormozgan province. The sea section would include a 192-kilometer stretch of 36-inch pipeline along the bed of the Oman Sea at depths of up to 1,340 meters, from Iran to Sohar Port in Oman. Iran is set to not only bring on further phases of development of North Pars but also the development with a view to the LNG market of a number of other major gas fields, including most immediately Golshan, Ferdowsi, Farzad A and Farzad B, and Kish. It should not be forgotten that the major field from which Qatar takes the gas to sustain its status as the number one LNG exporter in the world is exactly the same 9,700 square kilometer reservoir from which Iran draws much of its own gas: Qatar’s 6,000 square kilometer side of the field is the North Dome, whilst Iran’s 3,700 square kilometer side is South Pars (North Pars has been treated as an additional site). The final, tangential, part of this Iranian push is not directly to do with Iran but rather with China. More specifically, it springs from Beijing’s strategic ambition to control all of the major crude oil shipping route chokepoints from the Middle East into Europe and the West that avoid the more expensive and more nautically challenging Cape of Good Hope route around South Africa. The Strait of Hormuz, which allows oil to be shipped out from whichever Middle Eastern countries want to use it, is already effectively controlled by China through its relationship with Iran, cemented in the all-encompassing 25-year deal agreed in 2019. The Bab al-Mandab Strait, through which crude oil is shipped upwards towards the Suez Canal before moving into the Mediterranean and then westwards, lies between Yemen (which is being disrupted by Iran-backed Houthis, just as China wants) and Djibouti (over which China has established a stranglehold, as highlighted by Oilprice.com). There are other key crude oil infrastructure areas in and around the Middle East and China is already working on securing control over those if it has not already done so: most notably Iran’s Guriyeh-Jask route, some of the UAE’s coastal
Russia jumps to fourth position as oil supplier to India
Russia became the fourth-largest oil supplier to India in April, with volumes set to rise further in coming months as low prices spur demand from the world’s No. 3 oil consumer and importer, tanker tracking data showed. Russia’s share in India’s oil purchases rose to a record 6%, about 277,000 barrels per day (bpd) in April, up from about 66,000 bpd in March, when it was in 10th position, according to the data, which was supplied by trade sources. Indian Oil Corp. (IOC.NS), the country’s top refiner, bought its first-ever Russian Arco oil cargo last month. Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine has opened a rare arbitrage flow, prompting Indian refiners to increase buying of cheaper Russian oil shunned by many Western countries and companies. “Prices of Russian Urals crude fell sharply due to sanctions against Russia while Kazakhstan’s CPC blend crude came under pressure as it is loaded from a Russian port,” said Ehsan Ul Haq, analyst with Refinitiv. Indians had bought stranded Russian oil while some European buyers had bought higher volumes of African and U.S. oil, he said. The share of African oil in India’s overall oil imports declined to about 6% in April from 14.5% in March, while that of U.S. almost halved to 3%. Grades from Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan together accounted for about 11% of India’s imported oil in April, compared with about 3% in March. The share of Middle Eastern oil rose to 71% from 68%.
Govt Considers Selling Part Of Bharat Petroleum, Not Full Stake: Report
India is considering selling up to a quarter of state-run refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd after failing to attract suitors for the whole firm, two officials said, as the government’s divestment programme moves slower than expected. New Delhi is considering inviting bids for a 20%-25% stake in BPCL, instead of an outright sale of its entire 52.98% holding, the two government officials, who declined to be named, told Reuters. The officials said discussions about the plan were in the early stages. Initially, the government had aimed to raise $8-$10 billion from selling its full stake in BPCL. Having drawn up plans four years ago, it invited bids in 2020, hoping major players such as Russia’s Rosneft might be interested. But Rosneft and Saudi Aramco did not bid, as low oil prices at that time and weak demand curbed their investment plans. The government officials said even a part sale of BPCL was unlikely to be completed this fiscal year as the process would take over 12 months. Sale prospects were hit by inconsistent policies on petrol and diesel prices.
Saudi Oil Exports Dropped in March From Two-Year High In February
Crude oil exports from Saudi Arabia fell slightly in March from February, when the world’s top crude exporter shipped the highest level of crude since April 2020. The Kingdom’s crude oil exports averaged 7.235 million barrels per day (bpd) in March 2022, down from 7.307 million bpd in February, which was the first time since April 2020 that the Saudis had exported more than 7 million bpd of crude, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Monday. Despite the decline in crude shipments in March, Saudi Arabia’s exports still held above the 7 million bpd mark as the Kingdom is unwinding the production cuts per the OPEC+ agreement. Data from JODI, which compiles self-reported data from the countries, showed last month that Saudi crude exports rose in February to the highest level since the April 2020 month-long price war with OPEC+ ally Russia. Back then, the Saudis flooded the market with oil after failing to initially agree on a response to the plunge in global oil demand as countries imposed lockdowns to fight COVID. Saudi Arabia has been raising its crude oil production by over 100,000 bpd each month under the OPEC+ deal for a total of 400,000-bpd increase from all members of the pact. In the months leading to February 2022, Saudi Arabia had been raising slightly its crude exports each month. But the increase between January and February was more than 300,000 bpd, suggesting that the Kingdom drew more crude from elsewhere to export much more than its monthly increase in crude production. The high international crude oil prices and recovering demand probably also played a role in the higher Saudi crude exports in February. At the end of March, China started to impose the strictest lockdowns since the onset of the pandemic, leading to concerns about demand in the second quarter and total global oil demand for this year. Saudi crude oil production increased by 75,000 in March to 10.3 million bpd, per JODI data. That’s the same figure the Saudis self-reported to OPEC for March, although the cartel’s secondary sources pegged Saudi crude production as rising by 54,000 bpd to 10.262 million bpd in March.