Kuwait denies report on lower oil reserves

AFP
KUWAIT CITY
Petroleumworld.com 03 08 06

OPEC-member Kuwait on Tuesday denied a report which claimed its crude reserves were less half of the official figure of 99 billion barrels.

The authoritative industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW) reported in January that Kuwait's oil reserves stood at 48 billion barrels, based on internal Kuwaiti records seen by the newsletter.

The PIW report also claimed that Kuwait's fully proven reserves amounted to only 24.2 billion barrels.

"The report contained some right information but not the whole picture," Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah told reporters before leaving for Vienna to attend an OPEC meeting.

"The information is related to only 31 reservoirs we are currently working on. It does not include reserves in another 74 reservoirs which are not developed," Sheikh Ahmad said.

The minister told a press conference late Monday that Kuwait had discovered new reserves estimated at 10-13 billion barrels of light crude in northern Kuwait.

"The new discovery increases our reserves by 10 percent," said Sheikh Ahmad, adding that the previous reserves were estimated at about 90 billion barrels.

"We still have too many reservoirs that we have not touched yet. There is a great potential of raising our reserves considerably."

The head of Kuwait Oil Co (KOC), the production arm of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Faruq al-Zanki said that crude reserves revolve around 100 billion barrels "with the new discovery".

"I equivocally deny the report which stated that we only have 48 billion barrels of reserves," Zanki told AFP.

The controversy led veteran Kuwaiti lawmaker Ahmad al-Saadun to demand on Sunday that the government reveal the truth about the emirate's oil reserves.

"This raises justified and legitimate concerns that these reserves could be depleted in a very short duration on the basis of current production figures," Saadun, a three-time former speaker, said in a question to the energy minister.

"We must know the full truth on the proven and non-proven reserves and other data regarding the oil wealth," Saadun said.

Kuwait, whose officially stated oil reserves constitute about 10 percent of global crude reserves, is pumping around 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) and oil income contributes more than 90 percent of public revenues.

Based on the official figure, oil reserves can last for more than 100 years based on current production levels. The emirate produces just under one billion barrels of crude annually.

The emirate has earmarked more than 40 billion dollars for ambitious expansion projects which include raising output capacity to four million bpd by 2020 from the current 2.8 million bpd.

One of the main projects is a plan to double output to 900,000 bpd from four northern oilfields with the help of international oil companies, although the foreign involvment faces stiff resistance in parliament.

AFP 03 07 06

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