ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The world’s top petroleum exporter, Saudi Arabia, said on Sunday that it would not cut output to prop up oil markets even if nations outside OPEC did so, in one of the strongest signals that it planned to ride out the market’s biggest slump in years.

Referring to countries that are not members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Ali Al-Naimi, the oil minister of Saudi Arabia, told reporters: “If they want to cut production they are welcome. We are not going to cut, certainly Saudi Arabia is not going to cut.”

He added that he was “100 percent not pleased” with prices but said they would improve, although when was unclear.

He said speculators were responsible for the fall in prices to half their levels of six months ago and what he called a lack of cooperation from non-OPEC producers.