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Confusion over Kuwait as co-host of oil meet Officials at the Kuwait embassy here said that they had no decisive information as to whether they were co-hosting or co-chairing the one-day ‘ministerial round table conference - regional cooperation/key to energy and security’ here on January 6.
This comes even as minister of petroleum and natural gas Mani Shankar Aiyar has been saying that Kuwait is co-host for the conference.
Oil producers and buyers - Kuwait (co-host of the meet), Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia India, China, Korea and Japan - would discuss the “three Ss - stability, security and sustainability of oil supplies,” Mr Aiyar had recently said.
When asked about the role of Kuwait in the conference, a senior petroleum ministry official told FE: “Kuwait energy minister Sheikh Ahmad al Fahd al Sabah would be co-chairing the inaugural session with the petroleum and natural gas minister. They would also contribute in terms of inputs.”
According to MEA sources, during the conference and bilateral-level talks oil ministers of major West Asian crude oil producers will discuss stability, security and sustainability of oil supplies with major consumer nations.
The six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), which is participating in the conference, is set to play a key role in gas supplies in the future, as it controls 40% of the world’s proven natural gas or 72 trillion cubic metre of natural gas. However, current production does not exceed 245 billion cubic metre a year, or around 10% of the global gas output.
Sources said that this imbalance was going to be changed soon when several gas projects like the ambitious Dolphin Gas Project led by the UAE, which was progressing satisfactorily and was seemingly on track and several other gas projects in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were completed.
“Such a conference is not only going to strengthen regional co-operation but also give India an opportunity to explore possibilities of evolving an Asian oil products marker.”
The Asian oil products marker is proposed to be evolved in place of the current Asian premium which is levied by West Asian oil producing countries. The Asian premium is the additional tag on the crude which India and other Asian countries pay for the oil imports from West Asian countries.
Though the minister had confirmed the participation of the 12 countries, in the wake of the tsunami disaster the attendance could be thinner, petroleum ministry officials added.
According to the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), the UAE ranked fifth in the world in terms of proven natural gas reserves at the end of 2003 while it was the third biggest gas producer in the Arab region.
The UAE’s gas reserves are estimated at nearly six trillion cubic metre, the fifth largest after Russia, Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Its production of natural gas touched 54.6 billion cubic metre in 2002, the third largest after gas output in Algeria and Saudi Arabia.
In liquefied natural gas (LNG), the UAE is the second largest producer in the Arab world after Qatar. Qatar’s gas reserves are estimated at 25 trillion cubic metre and the country produces nearly 18 million tonne of LNG per year. Oman, another GCC member, has also injected around $6 billion into an LNG project and is planning to lift its capacity by at least 50% to 9 million tonne. Kuwait also has some 2.5 trillion cubic metre of gas, much of the deposits being associated gas that has to be exploited. | ||
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