Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is pumping at around 10 million barrels per day and is storing 80 million barrels to meet any sudden disruption in supplies, oil minister Ali al-Naimi said.

Worries of a supply disruption from the Middle East due to escalating tensions between the West and Iran over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme have pushed Brent prices 20 per cent higher since the start of the year to a record of over $128 in March.

Prices have since eased but the more expensive crude has threatened to derail the fragile global economic recovery and strained the budgets of emerging economies.

This has prompted Saudi Arabia, a key ally of the United States, to repeatedly stress that oil markets were well supplied.