...refuses to disclose exact spot of spill
The Kuwait Oil Company has declared a state of emergency following an oil spill in the west of the country. The company is state-owned by one of OPEC’s frontline producers.
AFP reported that no persons or infrastructure have been injured or tampered with following the oil spill. Also there have not been any oil production disruption after the incident, the agency quoted the company.
Kuwait’s Al Rai newspaper published a photo of oil gushing out of an oil well, also saying that there have not been injuries reported or any disruption to production.
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No toxic fumes have been reported, either, company spokesman Qusai al-Amer was quoted as saying.
The leak “occurred on land but not in a residential area”, the spokesperson later told AFP, but declined to specify the exact location of the spill.
Kuwait Oil Company said it has already sent emergency response teams to determine the source of the leak and contain the oil spill, the spokesman added. Previously, the company reported oil spills from the fields it operates in 2016 and in 2020.
Kuwait, one of the largest producers in OPEC, pumps around 2.7 million barrels of per (bpd) of crude oil. At 2.683 million bpd production in February, per OPEC’s secondary sources, Kuwait is the fourth-largest OPEC producer after Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Kuwait, alongside Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is one of the few major oil-producing countries to target an increase it its oil production capacity. Kuwait has a plan to boost its production capacity to 4.75 million bpd by 2040.
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Scott Sheffield, CEO at the largest pure-play shale producer, Pioneer Natural Resources, told the Financial Times on the sidelines of CERAWeek earlier this month, “I think the people that are in charge now are three countries — and they’ll be in charge the next 25 years.” “Saudi first, UAE second, Kuwait third.”
By Bosco Agba
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