Kuwait ‘could return to full oil production in three months’

• KPC gives more positive outlook
• Strait of Hormuz must reopen first
• Iran hit Kuwait airport in renewed strikes

Kuwait could return to its pre-Iran war oil production within three months once the Strait of Hormuz reopens, according to a managing director at Kuwait Petroleum Company.

The country could ramp up 70 percent of its production within six to eight weeks, Shaikh Khaled Ahmad Al-Sabah told the S&P Global Energy Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference in London.

“The other 30 [percent] might take us a month or so after that,” he said.

This is sooner than a previous timeline put forward by KPC’s chief executive Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah, who said it could take as long as four months.

The bullish comments came shortly after Kuwait said Iranian drone and missile strikes had hit a terminal at its international airport, causing “significant material damage”. The strikes killed one person and wounded more than 60 others.

Kuwaiti oil facilities were targeted by Iran multiple times before Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in mid-April. This included attacks on its Mina Abdullah and Mina Al-Ahmadi refineries.

Analysts estimate it could take years to repair the Mina Al-Ahmadi site, but Al-Sabah said on Wednesday that Kuwait could return to full refining capacity within two to three weeks.

Kuwait pumped around 2.7 million barrels of crude a day in February, before the conflict began.

This had plunged to around 1.2 million barrels a day in March. Leaked documents reported by Bloomberg showed the country has declared an open-ended force majeure on shipments.

The Gulf state is almost entirely dependent on the strait for oil exports.

It has around 5,000km of domestic pipelines but no international connections.

Further reading:

• Kuwait to speed up petrochemical project after oil merger
• UAE non-oil growth subdued as headwinds buffet Kuwait and Egypt
• Kuwait’s fiscal safety net will shield it from worst of Iran war

The strait has effectively been closed since the conflict began on February 28 and has become a focal point in negotiations for a peace deal between the US and Iran.

Al-Sabah said Kuwait was “in dialogue with many friendly countries” and is “revisiting” ideas to build international pipelines.

“A lot of people thought, why build a pipeline without using it? Now [this] shows the use of a pipeline,” he said.

He added that the country is likely to open more storage facilities once the war is over.

Austrian oil firm OMV echoed the comments, Reuters reported, with general manager Mikael Berthod telling the conference that Middle Eastern refiners must become more commercially agile and invest in pipelines and storage over the next two to three years.

Earlier on Wednesday Kuwait announced it would speed up a long-delayed $10 billion petrochemicals project after merging two state-owned oil companies.