IN BRIEF

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia

U.N.: Saudis planning to boost oil production

Saudi Arabia plans to boost its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month, the kingdom's oil minister told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, Ban's spokesman said.

Ban met with Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in Jiddah during a one-day trip to the world's largest oil producer.

Spokesman Farhan Haq wrote in an e-mail that Ban said al-Naimi had told him Saudi Arabia would increase production by 200,000 barrels a day from June to July. By July, production should be at 9.7 million barrels a day, Haq said.

Ban also said Saudi Arabia understands that the price of oil, which topped $139 per barrel this month, is not normal, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.

Saudi Arabia is concerned that sustained high oil prices will slacken the world's appetite for oil, affecting the kingdom in the long run.

The 200,000-barrel-a-day boost is not insignificant; it will raise Saudi Arabia's daily production by about 2 percent. But to a market that has been sending oil prices soaring partly because of strong global demand, the move might be seen as marginal.

In electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange late Sunday, crude oil futures were down 54 cents at $134.32 a barrel.

NEW YORK

AIG board names new chief executive officer

American International Group Inc., which has lost billions on bad bets on the mortgage market, on Sunday named former Citigroup Inc. executive Robert Willumstad to replace the insurer's besieged chief executive.

Willumstad, 62, will take over from Martin Sullivan, 53, effective immediately, the company said.

Stephen Bollenbach, the former CEO of Hilton Hotels Corp., will be named AIG's lead director.

AIG named Willumstad chairman of the board in fall 2006, about a year after he left his post as president and chief operating officer at Citigroup. Citigroup had passed him over for the CEO job, which went to the now-dethroned Charles Prince.

Sullivan, who worked with AIG for 37 years, joins the CEOs who have been pushed out since the credit crisis started hitting the financial services industry last year.

The list includes Citigroup's Prince, Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Stanley O'Neal and Wachovia Corp.'s Ken Thompson.

New York-based AIG, the world's biggest insurer with $1.05 trillion in assets, lost $7.8 billion during the first quarter of the year because of investments and contracts tied to bad loans.