KUWAIT: Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are to discuss later this month joint oil operations in their shared border areas, including the Dorra gas field, a Kuwaiti official said yesterday.
“A meeting between the two sides is slated for the second half of January. We will discuss future operations in the border areas,” Issa Al Oun, energy ministry undersecretary, said.
Oun will lead the Kuwaiti committee that will meet with the Saudi side to draw up future plans for the development of the Khafji and Wafra areas and their maritime operations which include gas and oil fields. “We will outline future operations in the areas and discuss potential operators, in addition to legal matters,” Oun said.
After the cancellation of the Japanese Arabian Oil Company’s concession, the areas are being operated by Saudi Aramco Company and Kuwait’s Gulf Oil Company.
But the areas also include the gas-rich Dorra field, whose largest part is located on the Saudi-Kuwaiti common maritime border, while a part of it is disputed by neighbouring Iran.
“The border issue of the field (with Saudis) was discussed in the past. Now, we will talk about the issue of operations. We will be talking about the distant future,” said Oun.
Riyadh and Kuwait City signed a deal in 2001 to demarcate their maritime border stipulating that the two countries jointly develop the natural resources of the offshore zone, including Dorra.
Kuwaiti Energy Minister Shaikh Ahmad Al Fahd Al Sabah and his Saudi counterpart Ali Al Nuaimi agreed in October to form two committees to discuss details of future operations.
Shaikh Ahmad said the Dorra field was discussed as part of the joint operations in the border areas. Kuwait wants to go ahead with plans to develop the gas field in coordination with the Saudis, but has been waiting to resolve its dispute with Iran. The emirate has indicated in the past few months it will go ahead in the development projects side by side with its talks with Iran. Shaikh Ahmad had even hinted at seeking international arbitration.
n Kuwait has sold fuel to the US military in Iraq based on contracts with the US government at market prices, the emirate’s energy minister said yesterday, denying reports that it was sold at inflated prices.
“Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) has been supplying oil products to Iraq based on contracts with the US administration at international market prices,” Shaikh Ahmad Fahd Al Sabah told the official KUNA news agency.
The role of KPC, the state-owned oil giant, and the Kuwaiti government is “limited to supplying the US party who signed the contract with fuel at market prices without playing any other role,” the minister said.
The US Defence Department said on Wednesday that the contract to supply fuel to the US military in Iraq was taken away from Halliburton, the energy giant at the centre of accusations of inflating prices.
Pentagon officials, quoted by US media, said there was no link between the change and accusations that a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellog, Brown and Root (KBR), may have overcharged for fuel by $61 million.
Halliburton, which used to be run by US Vice President Dick Cheney, has denied the allegations. An investigation into the accounts is still being carried out. – Agencies
Last update on: 5-1-2004