Just a day after Saudi Aramco said on Tuesday that the company would produce 12.3 million barrels of oil per day on April 1 – more than its current capacity, the Saudi oil company announced it was planning to expand its production capacity even further. The world’s largest exporter launches a price war with Russia and US shale companies.

Saudi Aramco will increase production capacity to 13 million barrels per day from the current 12 million barrels, the company said on Wednesday. The management does not specify when this capacity will be reached.

Although providing additional capacity can take years and millions of dollars in investment, the decision shows that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has almost no intention of moving away from his aggressive response to the collapse of OPEC’s alliance with Russia and other oil producers.

The country’s energy ministry, led by Prince Mohammed’s half-brother, has ordered Saudi Aramco to increase its production capacity for the first time in at least a decade. The world’s largest oil exporter will increase capacity to 13 million barrels per day, a statement says.

“The company is making every effort to implement this directive as soon as possible”, said the CEO of Saudi Aramco, Amin H. Nasser.

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman returned from Vienna last week without an agreement with OPEC+ for deeper cuts in production to help raise prices. The failure to strike a deal shattered a partnership between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and producers like Russia, which have governed much of the world’s oil supply for more than three years.

Oil prices plunged 31% on Monday after Saudi Arabia and Russia launched a price war on the market for “black gold”, which threatens to flood it, adding further strain amid the continuing spread of the coronavirus epidemic.

Saudi Arabia has more spare production capacity than Russia. The Kingdom announced more than a decade ago its plans to increase and maintain its capacity at 12 million barrels per day and are working to achieve this by expanding the available fields, including the Manifa field.