Kuwait slashes oil output

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 8

Kuwait slashes oil output

NZPA-Reuter . Kuwait Kuwait yesterday announced that it was cutting its daily oil production by 25 per cent and slashing by 75 per cent the volume of crude oil sales to leading Western buyers under new contracts, the Kuwait News Agency has said. A Kuwait Oil Ministry spokesman told the agency that daily production of 2 million barrels would be reduced to 1.5 million barrels, as previously announced. The spokesman also said the Ministry had signed new contracts with Kuwait’s main customers, British Petroleum, Gulf Oil of the United States,and Royal Dutch Shell. The new contracts were for a period of three years instead of the previous

five years, and they stipulated that half the volume of their crude-oil allocation .should be transported in Kuwait tankers, according to the agency. The spokesman said that under the new contract with BP, the company would take 75,000 barrels of crude a day, plus a supplementary 75,000 barrels during the first year only. Gulf Oil would take 75,000 barrels a day, and Shell 175,000 barrels the spokesman said. Previously BP took 450,000 barrels a day, Gulf Oil 500,000 barrels, and Shell 360,000 barrels. Among them the three firms took 1,310,000 barrels a day of Kuwaiti crude. The volume has now collectively reduced to 325,000 barrels a day.