Plans to ramp up oil production in Kuwait remain on track despite the resignation of the country's oil minister, a top official said Sunday.
Sheik Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah, Kuwait's oil minister and member of the ruling family, resigned Saturday, five days after Kuwaiti lawmakers requested his impeachment over allegations that he helped his cousin embezzle public money from a state-owned company more than a decade ago.
"Kuwait's production expansion plans remain unchanged," "We are maintaining the same momentum to produce 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2020," al-Zanki said.Mohammed al-Olaim, the minister for electricity and water, has been named acting oil minister.
Al-Sabah's resignation presents the latest complication in Kuwait's plans to raise production capacity from around 2.6 million barrels a day to 4 million barrels a day by 2020. Kuwait is the Persian Gulf's fourth largest oil producer.
Kuwait's plans include Project Kuwait, the long-awaited oil field development that would open five fields near Kuwait's border with Iraq to foreign oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Al-Zanki, who is responsible for the country's onshore and offshore exploration, urged the acting oil minister to approve Project Kuwait. Last year, al-Zanki estimated that this project would add about 300,000 barrels a day to the country's output.
"We hope the acting Minister of Oil considers the Kuwait Project the top priority," al-Zanki said.
Project Kuwait was presented in the 1990s. It stalled under the outgoing minister as he commissioned two banks to help him reassess the development of the northern oil fields.
Sheik Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah is Kuwait's second oil minister to quit in the last two years. He resigned a few weeks before a prolonged parliament inquiry into corruption allegations resulted in a vote of no-confidence that was scheduled for later this month.
He denied any wrongdoing, but decided to step down to avoid "public humiliation,".
