Saudi oil giant Aramco IPO-ARMO.SE will buy an equity stake in Malaysian firm Petronas' refining and petrochemicals project in the southeast Asian country, the companies confirmed on Tuesday, investing a total of $7 billion.

Oil supplies fell by around 1.5 million barrels per day last month, including by 1 million bpd for OPEC, leading to record initial compliance of 90 percent with a six-month output-cut deal reached in December by big producers to boost prices.

Saudi Arabia's crude oil supplies to Japan rose to a 10-year high in 2016, underlining the kingdom's strong will to defend its share in the ever competitive Asian markets.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, raised pricing for March sales to buyers from the U.S. to Asia as output cuts by OPEC and other producers shore up oil prices.

OPEC’s biggest crude producer is embarking on a domestic renewable-energy program costing $30 billion to $50 billion. The country’s only solar plant in operation, aside from a limited pilot project, is a 10-megawatt facility on top of a parking lot at Saudi Aramco’s headquarters. The national utility, Saudi Electricity Co., is seeking bids for two solar plants to generate a combined 100 megawatts.

Saudi Arabia has cut its crude-oil production by at least 486,000 barrels a day since October, said a person familiar with the kingdom’s output, bringing the world’s largest exporter of petroleum swiftly into line with OPEC’s deal to raise prices.

Saudi officials are seeking to transform Saudi Aramco into the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, which they say is worth about $2tn.

The first global crude supply pact in 15 years has underlined the growing energy alliance between Saudi Arabia and Russia, as the depth of the two-year oil slump forces co-operation between once unlikely partners.

“We expect demand to recover in 2017, then prices will stabilize, and this will happen without an intervention from OPEC,” Al-Falih said in Dhahran, eastern Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, according to the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. “We don’t have a single path which is to cut production at the OPEC meeting, we can also depend on recovery in consumption, especially from the U.S.”

With its oil revenues slashed by low crude prices, the government of the world’s largest oil exporter has cut spending sharply this year and reduced or suspended payments owed to construction firms, medical establishments and even some of the foreign consultants who helped to design its economic reforms.