Dubai: Kuwait’s crude production tumbled by 60 per cent and its refineries scaled back operations as the state oil company took emergency measures to cope with a labour strike.
Output in Opec’s fourth-biggest producer dropped to 1.1 million barrels a day on Sunday, Sa’ad Al Azmi, spokesman for Kuwait Oil Co, said in posts on Instagram and Twitter. Natural gas production stood at 620 million standard cubic feet a day, he said. Kuwait Petroleum Corp, the parent company for KOC and other operating units, will continue to provide fuel to the local market and can meet demand from international customers for exports, it said on Twitter.
The company also said operations at the country’s three fuel-processing plants were “smooth” as the company followed contingency plans for working with reduced staff, Khaled Al Asousi, spokesman for Kuwait National Petroleum, said by phone Sunday.
Emergency measures
The country’s oil and gas refineries are processing 520,000 barrels a day of crude, said Khaled Al Asousi, spokesman for Kuwait National Petroleum Co. The state-owned refinery unit reduced processing rates at the country’s three oil plants, which have a combined capacity of about 900,000 barrels a day, due to emergency measures and because less supply is available from KOC, he said.
Members of the 13,000-strong Oil & Petrochemical Industries Workers Confederation are protesting cuts in their wages and benefits, Saif Al Qahtani, the union’s leader, said by phone Thursday. About 6,000 workers walked off the job when the strike began Sunday, CNBC Arabiya cited him as saying. Union officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.
Negotiations
The drop in oil prices by nearly 30 per cent in the past year has strained government budgets across the Middle East, pushing states to cut spending and subsidies. Kuwait pumped 2.81 million barrels of daily output last month, according to the International Energy Agency. Kuwait’s refineries process crude into refined products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for domestic use and export.
Negotiations with the strikers were continuing, Mohammad Al Shatti, Kuwait’s representative to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said in Doha.
