Agence France Presse

Kuwait City, May 26:

Kuwait is currently producing 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd), some 514,000 barrels over its OPEC output quota, and is prepared to further hike production, a senior oil official was quoted as saying today. “Kuwait is currently producing 2.4 million bpd. If the situation requires increasing output more, we will raise it to our maximum capacity,” Ahmed al-Arbeed, chairman of Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), said in comments published in Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper. Kuwait’s official output quota since the beginning of April, when OPEC reduced production by one million bpd, stands at 1.886 million bpd. But Arbeed declined to say how much more the oil-rich emirate can pump to the international markets where crude prices have hit record highs.

KOC is responsible for oil exploration and production in Kuwait and is a subsidiary of the emirate’s giant conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC). “So far, we have not been notified by KPC to increase production or lower it,” he said. Kuwait, along with the world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, have been urging their OPEC partners to raise production in an attempt to cool skyrocketing prices which recently soared close to $42 a barrel in New York.

Yesterday, New York’s benchmark contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, fell to $41.14 a barrel. It had closed a day earlier at the highest level in the 21-year history of the contract.