Kuwait's earnings from oil in July and August reached 967 million dinars ($3.15 billion ), half of the estimated oil income for the current year, Al-Shall Economic Consultants reported Saturday.
The OPEC member's average oil price in the first two months of the 2000/2001 nine-month fiscal year was $26.5 a barrel, more than double the 13-dollar price adopted in the budget to calculate revenues.
The emirate's oil price peaked at $28.02 a barrel in the last week of August, a few days before the benchmark Brent crude cruised to a 10-year record high.
Oil revenues, estimated at 1.927 billion dinars ($6.3 billion ), are calculated on the basis of a conservative 13 dollars a barrel at a daily production of 1.98 million barrels.
Kuwait's Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries output quota was raised to 2.037 million barrels per day (bpd) from July 1, and is expected to rise by another 40,000 bpd if OPEC decides to hike output by 500,000 bpd during a meeting which starts Sunday.
Al-Shall figures were based on the 2.037 million bpd official production quota, but unconfirmed reports said that Kuwait, like several OPEC partners, was already overproducing by around 100,000 bpd.
Kuwait's current fiscal year, which started on July 1 and ends on March 31, 2001, was reduced to nine months because of a change in the year so as to start on April 1 rather than July 1. It projects a deficit of five billion dollars.
Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah said Friday that Kuwait's production capacity was very limited and called for speedy approval of an ambitious project to develop the emirate's northern oilfields.
The seven-billion-dollar project aims at seeking the help of foreign oil majors to double to 900,000 bpd the output in the oilfields bordering Kuwait's former occupier Iraq.
Kuwait, which sits on 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, plans to increase production capacity to three million barrels a day by 2005.
In July it approved a $655-million project to boost export capacity to three million barrels a day by the end of 2003.—AFP
©--Agence France Presse.
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
