KUWAIT CITY, 12 December 2003 — Kuwait agreed yesterday to supply its former occupier Iraq with additional quantities of petrol to help the war-torn nation meet an acute fuel shortage, a top Kuwaiti Energy Ministry official said.

“The Iraqi side asked for one million liters (220,000 gallons) of petrol daily. We told them we have the capacity for the additional supplies,” undersecretary Issa al-Oun told reporters after meeting with an Iraqi oil delegation.

The two nations have formed a technical team to study the most appropriate means to make the shipments, whether by land, sea or through the pipeline that was set up during the US-led war on Iraq to supply coalition forces, he said. Kuwait currently supplies Iraq and US troops there with some two million liters (439.94 gallons) of petrol daily. A request had been made earlier to increase this quantity to 3.5 million liters, Oun said.

“The Iraqi officials today asked for one million liters on top of those quantities. They also asked for smaller quantities of kerosene,” said Oun, adding that Kuwait has the capacity to produce the requested quantities.

Iraq, which has the world’s second-largest known oil reserves, imposed gasoline rationing Wednesday limiting each driver to only 50 liters (13 gallons) at the price of 20 dinars (one cent) per liter.

The Oil Ministry said the measures were temporary to deal with a fuel shortage and that the country was not facing a crisis.

Iraq and Kuwait also agreed to revive a project for Iraqi natural gas exports to Kuwait which was abandoned following the Iraqi invasion of the emirate in 1990, he said. There are two pipelines at present from southern Iraq to northern Kuwait, one for natural gas and the second for condensates, said Oun and added the pipelines needed some maintenance work to become operational.

Kuwait was receiving about 200 million cubic feet daily of gas from Iraq between 1986 and August 1990, when Iraqi troops invaded the emirate. The pipeline’s capacity is 400 million cubic feet daily, Oun said.

“After rehabilitation of the pipelines, we agreed that Iraq will export 50 million cubic feet of natural gas daily. The quantity will increase gradually to 200 million cubic feet daily within one- and-a-half years,” he said.

Another technical team is expected to issue a report on the matter within two weeks, he said.