KUWAIT - OPEC member Kuwait halted exports of crude oil and products on Thursday due to bad weather, a spokesman for state refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Co said. “We have stopped all exports, crude and oil products, due to high wind and dusty weather,” a KNPC spokesman told Reuters, adding that exports would remain halted until the weather improved.
A shipper said there was no disruption to exports from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, where the weather was clear.
Bad weather and sandstorms in the Gulf occasionally cause brief interruptions in oil exports from Kuwait, which sits on 10 percent of global oil reserves and pumped around 2.23 million barrels per day in April, according to a Reuters survey.
Kuwait exports a total of about 2.1 million barrels per day of crude and oil products. About 1.4 million bpd of exports are crude, and around 700,000 bpd are oil products. Most of the exports go to Asia.
Kuwait has three refineries—Shuaiba, Mina Abdullah and Mina al-Ahmadi—with a total refining capacity of around 930,000 bpd.
