Kuwait Exports Oil for 1st Time Since Invasion

Kuwait resumed oil exports Saturday with a 260,000-ton shipment--the first since Iraq invaded the emirate almost a year ago.

Oil Minister Hamoud Rogba told the newspaper Al-Watan that most of the oil had been produced in June and July. The oil was loaded aboard the tanker Thorness, which was due to leave the Ahmadi terminal Saturday morning.

More than a third of the 600 Kuwaiti oil wells set ablaze by the retreating Iraqis at the end of February have been brought under control, allowing the production of about 140,000 barrels a day.

Rogba said Kuwait’s daily production will rise to 400,000 barrels by the end of the year. It was not clear if the figure includes output from the neutral zone which the emirate shares with Saudi Arabia.

The minister said the first shipment of crude was sold to several companies. “Many offers were made to buy the shipment,” he said.

“It is difficult to say when Kuwait will be able to restore its full capacity, but we expect that by the beginning of next September we will be able to operate another gathering center with a capacity of 80,000 barrels a day,” Al-Watan quoted Rogba as saying.

Prewar Kuwait produced about 2 million barrels a day.

Rogba said the cost of putting out all the well fires could reach $1 billion. So far, 246 well fires have been extinguished.

Four U.S. and Canadian firms have been tackling the fires since March, and up to 16 firefighting teams will be in Kuwait by next month.

The emirate, whose oil exports were its major foreign currency earner, is seeking billions of dollars in foreign borrowing to compensate for the lost oil income and to finance postwar reconstruction.

Kuwait’s main deepwater export terminal of Sea Island is still out of action because of war damage.

Mine-clearing operations in the Persian Gulf have made navigation to Kuwait safer.

Western navies operating more than 30 vessels clearing Iraqi mines in the Gulf said recently that all shipping routes would be free of mines by the end of the month.