Saudi Arabia reasserted this morning its vow to keep the country's taps open and deliver steady supplies of crude after a deadly weekend militant attack on the eastern oil city of Khobar.
The top world oil exporter has already boosted output to pump more than nine million barrels daily in a bid to tame runaway prices, which threaten to pierce the $40 mark when markets reopen on Tuesday.
"Not one single barrel of our oil has been disrupted since the incident on Saturday," said Saudi petroleum consultant Mr Hassan Yassin. "We are pumping and exporting the same amount of crude and will continue to do so."
On Sunday, State-run oil giant Saudi Aramco said the shooting spree and hostage taking at Khobar had not affected its facilities or personnel and that it was committed to carrying out the Saudi Arabian government's policy of providing a reliable supply of oil to meet world demand.
The attack at Khobar, the second on the kingdom's vital oil industry in less than a month, comes just ahead of an OPEC meeting in Beirut. The cartel is due to consider a big rise in output limits on June 3rd.
Militants have yet to hit Saudi Arabia's vast and closely guarded oil infrastructure, but oil dealers fear they might shift from soft targets and attack production and export facilities.
Saudi forces searched the kingdom today for suspected al Qaeda militants who took dozens of foreigners hostage in the attack that ended in the death of 22 citizens.
Khobar, a 15-minute drive away from Aramco's heavily fortified headquarters in Dhahran, has no production, export or refining facilities.