Kuwait says won’t slow development of oil projects

Kuwait will not slow the development of its oil industry projects in response to the fall of crude prices, its oil minister Ali al-Omair told an industry conference on Sunday.

The chief executive of state energy giant Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Nizar al-Adsani, told the conference that his company had spent KD 4bn ($13.2bn) in the 2014/15 fiscal year and KD 2bn so far in the current fiscal year on strategic oil projects.

He said KPC was now studying several investment opportunities, including petrochemicals, in Asia and North America. He did not elaborate.

Kuwait currently produces about three million barrels per day of crude oil and by 2020 it will be able to produce four million bpd, Adsani added.

Last week, International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol said the fall in global upstream oil investment in 2015 would be at least 20 per cent versus 2014 and the biggest drop in history.