Kuwait will restart an oil gathering centre soon with an initial production capacity of up to 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), a Kuwaiti oil official has said.

Gathering centre 15, in the north of the country, has been undergoing major repairs following a fire in 2002. The restart has been delayed from an original October target.
“The centre will hopefully be operational sometime next week,” said the official.
“It will have the capacity to produce at a total of about 300,000 bpd by the end of 2005,” he said.
The amount that Kuwait will pump from the gathering centre will depend on the level of its Opec quota, which currently is 2.167 million bpd, the official said.
Kuwait production in November was estimated at 2.35 million bpd.
“If and how much Kuwait’s total production will be in-creased depends on many other issues linked to quotas,” the official added.
“How much the state decides to output is up to their decisions on reading the market,” he said.
Kuwait has agreed to cut back 120,000 barrels per day of oil production from January 1 as part of a deal by the Opec cartel to reduce supply by a total of one million barrels per day.
The official said rehabilitation work at the gathering centre also includes the startup of gas processors, which will be done in two phases beginning in end-May.
“Around the end of May the centre will begin to receive and process the associated gas, aiming for a total capacity of 500 million cubic feet (of gas) daily by the end of 2005,” said the official.
“Once the centre is fully operational and all gas and oil installations are at full throughput, then total (crude) production capacity will be around 300,000 bpd,” he added.