LONDON — The death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia early Friday is unlikely to deter the desert kingdom from maintaining a high level of oil production despite the recent sharp drop in prices, analysts said.
Saudi Arabia’s policy results from a consensus of the kingdom’s leadership and energy experts, and it will not be easy to abandon, longtime observers of Saudi Arabia say.
“There is no near-term reason to modify the kingdom’s position,” said Sadad al-Husseini, a former executive vice president and board member of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, in a telephone interview.
Mr. Husseini, who now runs his own energy consulting firm, noted that Saudi Arabia had only fully detailed its position to maintain its oil production quota at a November meeting of OPEC in Vienna and that it was likely to wait for at least several months to see how the policy played out.
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Declining to play the role of swing producer inevitably makes Mr. Naimi a target of anger both inside and outside of OPEC, as oil companies halt planned projects and lay off workers and as oil-producing countries see their government coffers shrink.
The stress on Mr. Naimi, who is usually unflappable, was evident at the November OPEC meeting, when he snapped at at least one journalist asking about the oil market and declined to answer questions during the traditional interview session before the start of the gathering.
While the Gulf producers may have substantial reserve assets to cushion the sharp falls of income, countries like Venezuela and to a lesser extent Algeria, Iran and Nigeria will be squeezed if low prices persist.
