Kuwait is delaying plans to boost its crude output capacity by more than a third to 4 million barrels of oil a day by 10 years to 2030 due to lack of expertise and current oil market conditions, the country's oil minister said Tuesday.
Kuwait, which has a current production capacity of about 3 million barrels of oil a day, had planned to raise output through a series of projects, including Project Kuwait, which would have involved international oil companies in pumping crude from the north.
Project Kuwait, which has been proposed over a decade ago, has met resistance from Kuwait's influential parliament, which has to stamp such a plan in order to go into effect. Kuwait's constitution bans the involvement of international oil companies in production of oil in Kuwait.
Kuwait expects oil prices this year to continue to range between $60 to $80 a barrel, Ahmad Abdullah Al Sabah said in statements carried by Kuwait's official Kuna news agency. It is too early to predict oil price levels in 2010, he added.
Al Sabah denied a newspaper report that said Gulf Arab oil-producers were planning to dump the dollar as a currency for oil trading and switch to a basket of currencies, Kuna reports.
U.K. daily The Independent reported earlier Tuesday that Gulf OPEC members, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, are in talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the dollar with a basket of currencies.
Sabah criticized Russia's increase in oil production, which he said has affected the oil market.