Kuwait crisis threatens to delay decision on investment

A rift within Kuwait’s royal family deepened on Sunday, with the ailing new emir, Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, clinging to his post as the government considered constitutional procedures to depose him.

The succession crisis threatened to delay by as much as a year the decision over whether to allow international oil companies back into the country, Kuwaiti oil officials and analysts said.

..Kuwait’s energy minister has warned that the emirate would be unable to increase its production from 2.5m to 4m barrels a day by 2025 without allowing international oil companies to return, some 30 years after Kuwait nationalised its oil industry.

The political barrier to international oil investment in countries such as Kuwait is one of the factors that will decide the oil price over the next decades.

If oil-producing countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Russia and Venezuela, which hold the majority of the world’s reserves, do not invest enough in boosting their production, oil prices will threaten world economic growth, the International Energy Agency, the consuming countries’ watchdog, has warned.

Financial Times