Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports rose marginally in March from the previous month, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Thursday.

Crude exports from world's largest oil exporter edged up about 1% to 7.52 million barrels per day (bpd) in March from 7.46 million bpd in February.

Saudi's domestic crude refinery throughput increased by 0.289 million bpd to 2.732 million bpd, while crude production was seen higher at 10.46 million bpd.

Monthly export figures are provided by Riyadh and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to JODI, which publishes them on its website.

However, Kpler and Petro Logistics, which also monitor shipments, said Saudi exports may have fallen in May as a voluntary production cut pledged by the kingdom and other OPEC+ producers takes hold.

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have repeatedly said that they are not targeting a specific price for oil, yet some OPEC observers said that the organisation needed higher oil prices due to rising inflation.

State-owned Saudi Aramco cut its official selling prices for all crude grades to Asia for June-loading cargoes amid lower refining margins. However, the price reduction was less than the market expected.

(Reporting by Seher Dareen, Kavya Guduru and Rahul Paswan in Bengaluru; Editing by Jan Harvey and Sharon Singleton)