Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, has put on hold any plans to further increase long-term production capacity from its vast oil fields, its most powerful policymakers have said. In a series of statements, including one by the king himself, the kingdom has warned consumers it does not believe there is a need for further expansion, an assumption disputed by the world's biggest developed countries. The realisation that Saudi Arabia will not increase production to 15m barrels a day as quickly as important consumers and the markets had assumed could put further pressure on oil prices, which hit fresh records last week. New York benchmark futures reached a record of slightly less than $117 a barrel last week in response to fear that Russia, the world's second largest producer, was unable to increase production in the next years. Abdullah Jum'ah, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's oil company, said in a closed-door meeting with oil ministers and executives in Rome yesterday that market signals were "imperfect" and that there were uncertainties created by the move away from oil, the world's worsening economic outlook and the recent turbulence in the financial markets, according to one person who took notes at the discussions. This had affected Riyadh's view on the profitability of investing billions of additional dollars in its industry at this point, Gulf sources said. In a recent interview with Argus, an industry newsletter, Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia's energy minister, made clear Riyadh had "no plans" for now to embark on its next phase of expansion. "We are idling at around 9m bpd and we will reach capacity of 12.5m bpd by 2009." He added: "That is substantial spare capacity. As far as I know, all the latest projections, at least up to 2020, do not require anything higher than that." Forecasts by the International Energy Agency, the watchdog of the main consuming countries, reach a different conclusion. Most recently the group calculated that, even if all the policies to increase renewable fuels and to use oil more efficiently were to be enacted tomorrow, the world would still need Opec's daily production to increase by 11.5m barrels by 2030, the bulk of which would have to come from its biggest members, such as Saudi Arabia. That is a tall order. Recent announcements will harden the view of those sceptics who argue the kingdom is unable to boost production because of the high decline rates at its fields. King Abdullah was reported by the official news agency this month to have said: "I keep no secret from you that, when there were some new finds, I told them 'No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it'." Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008