Posted on 10/27/2014 4:59:11 AM PDT by thackney
A senior Kuwaiti official said on Sunday the Khafji oilfield, run jointly with Saudi Arabia, had been shut down for "purely technical and not political" reasons, state news agency KUNA reported.
Crude production from the Khafji oilfield had been halted temporarily to comply with environmental rules, according to an industry source and an internal letter seen by Reuters. But the closure of the offshore field, which has an output of between 280,000 to 300,000 barrels per day, revived speculation of renewed tensions between the two countries.
Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry undersecretary Khaled al-Jarallah, speaking in Riyadh after a meeting of Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers, said relations between the two countries were too strong to be affected by discrepancies over oil output from the field.
"This discrepancy is related to the joint zone, joint production and the aspects of this production," he told journalists, according to KUNA.
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
I’m sure they aren’t doing this to raise the price per barrel. Or maybe the current low price is the actual technical reason. Because technically they are making less money. Whatever.
They’ve had more than a few political issues with this field.
Saudis to Expand Offshore Oil Field without Kuwait
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303773704579267672717812650
Dec. 19, 2013
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia will go it alone in boosting the capacity of an offshore oil field in its shared neutral zone with Kuwait after the neighboring Persian Gulf state withdrew from the project due to political deadlock between parliament and the government, two people familiar with the matter said.
Kuwait had initially told Khafji Joint Operations, the joint venture that oversees and develops the operations at the neutral zone, that it would participate in the Khafji offshore project, but later pulled out due to political troubles in the country, the people said.
“Kuwait has several problems between its parliament and the government that are causing delays in several projects including Khafji, which is not a top priority for the government at the moment,” said one person familiar with the matter.
“No official wanted to make a decision on sharing the costs of the project and get questioned later by the parliament for one reason or another, so they pulled out,” the person said....
“Kuwait will not take a share of the incremental production since they did not share the costs of Khafji’s development,” a Saudi official said....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.