Saudi Arabia orders oil cuts to US, Europe

VIENNA - Saudi Arabia has told its U.S. and European customers it will reduce oil deliveries from January, as Russia said it was confident non-OPEC producers would fully join OPEC's output limits on Saturday in the first such move since 2001.

Saudi Arabia told the customers about lower supplies in line with the output reduction agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries last week, according to a Gulf oil industry source familiar with Saudi oil policy, Reuters reported.

"We told our customers of the allocations and the compliance with allocations (for the cuts) for Saudi Arabia is 100 percent," the source said.

He said cuts to Asian refiners would be lower than those to Europe, the United States and to major oil companies.

"We are cutting more in the U.S. because the inventories ... are very high," the source said.

OPEC will meet non-OPEC producing countries in Vienna on Saturday, hoping non-OPEC will commit to cutting 600,000 barrels per day after its own members agreed to cut 1.2 million bpd last week.

OPEC sources said nine non-OPEC countries were set to join the meeting: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Oman, Mexico, Russia, Sudan, South Sudan, Bahrain and Malaysia. Bolivia may also attend the talks, according to an OPEC source.