FILE PHOTO: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud arrives at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 6, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said on Wednesday the Khafji oil field which is jointly operated with Kuwait would produce 320,000 oil barrels per day (bpd) at the end of 2020, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV reported.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman made the announcement at Khafji oil field complex in Saudi Arabia, a day after signing a deal with Kuwait that ended a dispute over the partitioned Neutral Zone that is shared by the two countries.
The two OPEC members halted production more than five years ago at Khafji and Wafra field, another jointly run field. Production is also resuming at Wafra. Output from both before the shutdown was 500,000 bpd, or about 0.5% of the world’s oil supply.
“With the signing of this new accord, both parties have reached consensus that now is the right time to resume production in this zone,” Saudi Aramco President and Chief Executive Amin Nasser said in a statement.
He also attended the ceremony, alongside Kuwaiti Oil Minister Khaled al-Fadhel.
Khafji is operated by AGOC, a subsidiary of Aramco, and Kuwait’s Gulf Oil Company.
The Saudi and Kuwaiti ministers said resuming oil production from the Neutral Zone would not affect their commitments to a deal on curbing supply reached between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers, including Russia, a group known as OPEC+.
Oil output in the Neutral Zone is divided equally between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The zone is subject to treaties dating back to the 1920s treaties related to their mutual borders.
Reporting by Dahlia Nehme; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Edmund Blair