KUWAIT CITY, April 22: Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) celebrated Monday the storage of its first oil shipment to South Korea. Sources told the newspaper that the company’s choice to store its oil in South Korea is based on the agreement signed with Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) last October to store four million barrels of Kuwaiti crude oil; considering South Korea ranks second in terms of receiving Kuwaiti oil exports -- around 19 percent of Kuwait’s oil production. Sources cited another objective of storing oil in South Korea; that is, to be close to Asian markets, which import the largest share of Kuwaiti crude oil like Vietnam and Japan. Sources said the East Asian countries import about 1.5 million barrels of Kuwaiti oil per day, not to mention the prevention of shipping fee hikes in the future. Sources mentioned one more objective -- KPC’s efforts to retain the largest possible quantity of oil, especially since it has surpluses resulting from its current and future voluntary OPEC quota reduction policy. They added KPC needs to increase its external reserves, because it aims to increase the capacity of the Kuwaiti oil sector to four million barrels per day in the next few years.

By Najeh Bilal Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff