Kuwait is maintaining its oil industry investments despite the drop since mid-2014 in the price of crude oil.
Oil Minister Ali Al-Omair told the Kuwait Oil & Gas Show that low oil prices wouldn’t undermine strategic investments in exploration, refining, and distribution.
Kuwait National Petroleum Corp. is integrating and upgrading three existing refineries in its Clean Fuels Project, which will have 800,000 b/d of crude capacity (OGJ Online, Feb. 12, 2014). It’s also building a 615,000-b/d refinery at Al Zour in southern Kuwait (OGJ Online, Oct. 13, 2015).
At the same conference, Nizar Al-Adsani, chief executive of Kuwait Petroleum Corp., said plans are on schedule to raise Kuwaiti production capacity to 4 million b/d of crude oil by 2020 from 3 million b/d at present.
The Kuwaiti officials’ remarks followed by a week remarks to reporters by the United Arab Emirates energy minister indicating low oil prices would not slow the federation’s plans to raise production capacity to 3.5 million b/d by 2017 (OGJ Online, Oct. 8, 2015).
