Within a week of experiencing one of the worst blows to its oil supply in a decade, Saudi Arabia is scrambling to fulfill oil orders by importing the commodity.
After the news, Brent crude oil was up 2.1%, at $64.93 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate futures CLX19, were up 1%, at $58.63 a barrel. The country immediately borrowed 2 million barrels of oil from Iraq.
Saudi Aramco, the nationalized oil company that controls most of the oil flowing through the region, has reached out to foreign producers to obtain some of their oil that they will then distribute to its own domestic refineries. In addition, it has purchased some other petroleum products such as refined fuels from neighboring countries.
For instance, Saudi Arabia has asked Iraq's national oil marketing company, the State Organization for Marketing of Oil, or SOMO, for up to as much as 20 million barrels of crude to supply Saudi's domestic refineries, two people acquainted with the current situation said.
"On Monday, they started inquiring around for the purchase of oil products, probably with the aim of maximizing crude exports," said Dario Scaffardi, chief executive of Italian refiner Saras SpA.
The oil behemoth produces around 12 million barrels, which was significantly knocked down to 5.7 million barrels a day after the attack. Domestically, consumption in Saudi is minimal compared to world giants like the US, China and India, who will be very much adversely impacted by this because they still need to power more than half of the world's population.
"They are prioritizing the international market and exports for crude," said Iman Nasseri, managing director Middle East at consulting firm Facts Global Energy.
"Throughout our 16-refinery system, and with our robust logistics network, we have tremendous flexibility regarding our crude oil sourcing," a spokesman for Aramco said.
Saudi Arabia primarily exports unrefined crude oil. Typically, the country refines oil products into diesel, gasoline and fuel oil, used mainly for domestic electricity generation and transport fuel.