Kuwait Producing 270,000 Barrels a Day After Power Outage

By Fiona MacDonald

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Kuwait's three oil refineries are producing 270,000 barrels a day out of a total capacity of 936,000 barrels after a power outage halted operations yesterday.

``We're starting up gradually and now producing 270,000 barrels,'' Kuwait National Petroleum Co. spokesman Mohammed al-Ajmi said by phone today. ``We hope to resume full operations by the end of tomorrow.''

Kuwait, the fourth-biggest OPEC producer, halted production at the refineries when an electricity outage caused by high humidity tripped power supply to the facilities. Exports were not affected and there was no damage to the refineries, all of which are located within 10 kilometers of each other in the south of the emirate.


The country's Mina Abdullah refinery has a capacity of 270,000 barrels a day, while Mina Al-Ahmadi and Shuaiba refineries have a 466,000 and 200,000 barrels-a-day capacity respectively.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fiona MacDonald in Kuwait FmacDonald4@bloomberg.net