DUBAI, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Energy Minister, Suhail Al Mazrouei, said on Monday that the UAE, as an OPEC member, is ready to support Saudi Arabia by providing additional capacity after drone attacks caused half of the kingdom's production to go temporarily offline.
"We have certain capacity that we can put into the market," said Mazrouei in statements, according to the local newspaper The National.
The UAE is OPEC's third-largest producer with a production capacity of 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd).
He said that it is premature to call an emergency meeting of OPEC without the request of Saudi Arabia, stressing the UAE's commitment to OPEC's decisions and that it will not take any related action without the organisation's approval.
Attacks on two facilities in the east of Saudi Arabia led state oil company Saudi Aramco to suspend production of 5.7 million bpd of crude, which is equivalent to 5 percent of global supply.