Kuwait’s oil minister resigns amid energy challenges

Reuters//Stephanie McGehee

• Oil revenues are down 19%
• Structural reforms needed
• Political instability continues

Kuwait’s finance minister, Nora Suleiman Al-Fassam, has been appointed acting oil minister, after the resignation on Sunday of the deputy prime minister and minister of oil, Imad Al-Ateeqi, amid ongoing political instability in the country.

Al-Fassam is also minister of state for economic and investment affairs, having been appointed just last month.

She came from a role as chief strategy officer at Boubyan Bank, and will now have a great deal on her plate managing the country’s oil sector.

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According to reports, Kuwait’s upstream industry faces a number of challenges, including parliamentarians’ reluctance to allow foreign investment, and political instability. The oil ministry has seen significant turnover in recent years.

The Kuwaiti government has been pushing for structural reforms to what is the country’s dominant industry. It accounts for 95 percent of Kuwaiti export revenues, and represents about 90 percent of government income. 

Kuwait, an Opec member, is one of the world’s largest crude exporters, pumping an average of 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2023-24.

But its annual oil revenues fell to KD21.6 billion ($79.7 billion), it was reported in July, down 19 percent year on year.

During seven of the last ten years, “oil GDP growth has tended to be negative, fluctuating in line with Opec supply policy,” the National Bank of Kuwait said in a report in July.

Kuwait’s oil output capacity is falling and the Greater Burgan field, the world’s second-largest field, is also ageing.

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The government is seeking to accelerate new oil and gas findings in line with plans to increase its production capacity to 4 million bpd by 2035 from 3 million bpd at present, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s CEO, Sheikh Nawaf al-Sabah, said in March.

Last July, the state-owned Kuwait Oil Company, a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, announced a significant discovery of light oil and associated natural gas in its offshore Al-Nokhatha field, located east of the Kuwaiti island of Failaka.

The field holds approximately 2.1 billion barrels of light oil and 5.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, equivalent to 3.2 billion barrels of oil.

Kuwait is also focused on enhancing its refining capabilities, with plans to increase domestic refining throughput to 2 million barrels per day by 2040.