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13:25 GMT
(With PWR-OPEC-SUMMIT series) RIYADH, Nov 15 (KUNA) -- Kuwait will remain committed as a major oil producer to utilize its resources for the welfare of its people, while recognizing its responsibility to meet the future oil needs of the world community, said Kuwait's Electricity and Water Minister and Acting Oil Minister Mohammad Al-Olaim on Thursday.
Speaking at a seminar held on the sidelines of the Third OPEC Summit, scheduled for Saturday, the minister said his country was working to provide the oil market with oil and petroleum products by expanding its production and refining capacity.
"Oil production capacity is planned to reach three million barrels a day in 2010, 3.5 million barrels a day in 2015 and four million barrels a day in 2020, " he said. "We are expanding our refining capacity to 1.5 million barrels a day in 2012." Al-Olaim added that outside Kuwait, the country had several planned joint ventures in refining and marketing. "Our upstream and downstream investments over the next five years are estimated at USD 60 billion and may even exceed that with rising costs of raw materials and construction." He noted that the growing impact of financial markets on short term oil price movements warranted serious attention since it played a profound role in shaping log term expectation and subsequently the demand for oil.
"I believe that this issue poses a serious challenge to producers and consumers and I would like to emphasize the need for us to work closely to improve the efficiency of market mechanisms," the minister added.
He said that maintaining reasonable and stable oil prices was not the sole responsibility of OPEC and that it was a complex issued that required the collaboration of producers and consumers.
He stressed that to satisfy world oil requirements, "producers need to make costly investments to expand production capacity," and thus "security of demand for oil and fair energy policies are crucial for the producers to be able to carry out their production capacity expansion plans to meet the future world demands." On his part, Saudi Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Nuaimi stressed the importance of cooperation between oil producers and consumers given today's economic and environmental circumstances.
He called for utilizing expertise of OPEC members in the oil and gas sector, stressing the need for efficient use of energy and finding solution to environmental problems by placing laws that curbed the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
As for former OPEC Secretary General Dr. Subroto, he noted concerns that the price of the oil barrel would exceed USD 100, adding that climate change was the main reason why the oil industry was fluctuating.
He said three factors would push the barrel above the USD 100 mark were the impact of the US market, increasing demand in the winter season, and whether or not OPEC could avoid these prices. (end) ay.ema KUNA 151625 Nov 07NNNN