Kuwait oil output almost at capacity one day after strike ends
[DUBAI] Kuwait's oil production is almost back to capacity one day after workers called off a strike that had disrupted output and sent prices rising.
Opec's fourth-largest producer boosted output to 2.9 million barrels a day on Thursday, acting Oil Minister Anas Al- Saleh said in a letter posted on state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp's Twitter account. Capacity is 3 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Production was 1.5 million barrels on Tuesday, one day before the strike ended.
The 13,000 members of the Oil & Petrochemical Industries Workers Confederation walked off their jobs to protest cuts in pay and benefits amid a push by Middle Eastern crude exporters to reduce subsidies and government handouts to cope with falling oil prices. A global glut of crude has pushed prices 27 per cent lower in the past year. Worldwide supply surpassed demand by 1.5 million barrels a day in the first quarter, according to the International Energy Agency.
Brent crude fell as much as 2.5 per cent on Thursday and was trading US$1.03 lower at US$44.75 a barrel in London at 3:02 pm local time. Prices had climbed during the strike as Kuwait's output plunged to 1.1 million barrels a day on the first day on Sunday.
The country's three refineries boosted their total crude- processing rate to 830,000 barrels, according to Al-Saleh's letter. That's an increase from about 520,000 barrels of crude the facilities were able to process during the strike. The refineries have total capacity of about 900,000 barrels a day.
BLOOMBERG
KEYWORDS IN THIS ARTICLE
BT is now on Telegram!
For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes
Energy & Commodities
Oil settles near 7-week lows, focus shifts to economy
Exxon-Pioneer deal gets green light from US FTC, Pioneer exec barred from board
Shell maintains pace of buybacks as profit beats estimates
Gold prices drift higher as Fed stands pat on key interest rate
Oil falls to 7-week low on surprise US storage build, Middle East hopes
US, Philippines eye agreement to cut China nickel dominance