PARIS, 16 November 2005 — Saudi Arabia has the means to sharply increase its oil production to 18.2 million barrels per day by 2030 from the current level of 10.5 million, the deputy head of the International Energy Agency, William Ramsay, said on yesterday.

“We have access to several sources of information we consider fairly reliable and we think that the country can attain and maintain in the long-run this level of production,” Ramsay said in the French trade magazine “Le pitrole et le gaz arabes” (Arab Oil and Gas) to appear tomorrow.

“The Saudi reserves are large enough to reach these production levels, even if one were to assume that the estimates were overvalued by 30 percent and even if one were to assume that there would be a significant increase in production costs,” Ramsay said. “Producing 18.2 million barrels a day is not a technical challenge but rather a challenge in terms of policy and the market,” he said.

Ramsay said a current debate over “peak oil” — the expected decline in oil production as a result of the rapid depletion of reserves — was distracting politicians from the key issues and “could lead them to make decisions that are unreasonable in economic terms.” “Should we take strong measures today if the peak oil does not pose a threat for the near future? We think that scientific and technological progress will enable us to postpone that date and therefore we don’t need to talk about it right now,” he said. “There are other issues that are more pressing,” he said.

Meanwhile, China aims to boost Saudi crude imports by 14 percent next year, ensuring a hefty share of term deals as it strives to limit the impact of its spot buying on volatile prices, Beijing-based industry officials said yesterday. Top lifter Sinopec Corp. is slated to conclude talks with state-owned Saudi Aramco soon as part of its plan to keep long-term supply at nearly 70 percent of its total crude import requirement versus 55-60 percent a few years back.

If agreed, imports from the world’s top exporter next year would hit a record 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), up from 440,000 bpd this year, keeping the kingdom at the top of China’s list.

The world’s No. 2 oil consumer is also set to buy more crude from other Middle Eastern nations, Africa, Russia and Venezuela via long-term contracts, hoping to downplay its role in oil markets spooked by China’s 34 percent surge in imports last year. “The more crude we import the more term volumes we need for security of supply. Otherwise we will be scrambling for spot barrels in the market,” a Sinopec trader said.

Higher imports may mean Saudi Arabia, which accounts for nearly a third of output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), will cut back supplies to other customers or pump more crude than this year’s 9.5 million bpd. Major producers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela are keen to strengthen bonds with fast-growing Asian consumers China and India, partly as a way to offset a dependence on the huge US market, which consumes nearly one in four barrels worldwide.