KUWAIT CITY, 9 February 2005 — The Kuwaiti Parliament’s financial and economic committee began debating yesterday new draft legislation to regulate billions of dollars of potential investment by world majors in the emirate’s oil sector. Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmed Fahd Al-Sabah said the new bill rules out any foreign ownership of the Gulf country’s oil resources and conforms with the constitution as well as Kuwait’s national interests.
“We affirmed to the committee that the project does not violate the constitution, it is not based on partnership but on operation contracts and (foreign) companies will be paid in cash and not crude,” he told reporters. The 28-article bill is needed to allow the government to go ahead with a seven-billion-dollar investment project to boost output of the northern oilfields from the current 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 900,000 bpd.
