By Benoit Faucon 

Saudi Arabia on Sunday made deep reductions to the prices it charges for its oil, hard on the heels of cuts last month by rival producers in the Gulf.

With U.S. production still increasing despite lower oil prices, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are battling to keep their share of the last growing markets in Asia.

In a list of official prices sent to customers, state-oil company Saudi Aramco cut the price of its light-crude deliveries to Asia by $1.7 a barrel. As a result, it switched to a discount of $1.6 a barrel against the rival Dubai benchmark from a premium of 10 cents a barrel previously. The company also cut its prices for heavy oil by $2 a barrel to the Far East and by 30 cents a barrel to the U.S.

The move come as Iran, Iraq and other countries in the Middie East made deeper cuts in their official prices than Saudi Arabia last month.

Saudi Arabia has vowed to keep pumping at high levels as it hopes lower oil prices will stimulate Asian demand and hit rival production in the U.S. that is expensive to produce. But while Chinese economic growth is slowing, U.S. production rose by about 68,000 barrels a day in July, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 04, 2015 10:21 ET (14:21 GMT)