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Kuwait has appointed an international consultant to conduct a study on the rising costs of projects to boost its hydrocarbon resources, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Oil extraction costs in the OPEC member have surged by around 17.9 percent to 1.365 Kuwaiti dinars ($4.5) a barrel at present, causing concern to policymakers in the Gulf state, the Arabic language daily Al-Jardida said, quoting informed sources.
“This represents an increase of around KWD0.206 ($0.67) in a few years…this increase has prompted the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to name an international consultant to carry out a study on reasons for the rising costs,” it said without naming the firm.
The report quoted the sources as saying that KOC, which is in charge of Kuwait’s upstream industry, believes the increase is due to rising global prices of equipment and services, leading to an increase in the Company’s operational expenses.
“KOC believes this could affect its efforts to preserve the country’s hydrocarbon resources and push ahead with projects to boost output capacity,” it added.
Kuwait, a founding member of OPEC, controls nearly 101 billion barrels of extractable oil deposits, which could last more than 100 years at current production levels.
(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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