Kuwait faces strong debate over foreign company participation in oil industry

Kuwait's first deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah said yesterday that the plan aimed at permitting major international petroleum companies to produce petroleum locally doesn't require the parliament's approval.

In press statements, Sheikh Sabah said the plan includes a role for foreign companies to take part in developing the current fields and in increasing their production, adding that this is not included in the constitutional and legitimate restrictions and does not demand issuing a law in order to proceed with the process.

The statements of Sheikh Sabah were released when the parliament's deputies repeated their objection of the dealing of Petroleum Minister Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah to the plan.

Meanwhile, the Islamic opposition deputy Naser El-Saneh said before the parliament that there is a constitutional breach, and called for transparency and competition, as he accused the petroleum minister of opposing the people's will primarily over the return of foreign petroleum companies to work in Kuwait, nearly 20 years after the industry's nationalization.

El-Saneh and four permanent deputies have presented to the Nation's Council, a draft law to halt the implementation of the first phase of a plan costing $7 billion, aiming at doubling the production of northern fields near Iraq to 900,000 barrels of petroleum daily.

Some deputies say that according to the constitution, the foreign petroleum companies should be ruled by a new law, yet Sheikh Sabah said that according to the plan, there will be no foreign ownership of the reserves and no participation in production, so there is no need to issue a new law.