KUWAIT (Agencies): Kuwait’s oil exports to the Far Eastern countries increased by 10.9 percent in 2007, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said on Monday. Spot transactions sales to the Far East in 2007 rose from 79 percent to 81 percent whole they dropped by 2 percent to the West, from 21 percent to 19 percent, Data obtained by KUNA on the KPC’s achievements this year showed. The Corporation realized KD 1.708 billion in profits during the past fiscal year and managed to double crude oil sales to the Chinese market to 80,000 barrels a day. As for training, participants in the various training and development programs in the various units of the oils sector in 2007 hit 30,000, among them 24,000 participants in the Petroleum Training Centre (PTC) in Al-Ahmadi, an unprecedented rate in the oil sector.
In addition, the KPC is planning for upgrading performance regarding training and development in light of the annual rise of participants and the personnel increase thanks to the new projects such as the fourth refinery in addition to developing the north Kuwait oil fields and the Kuwaitization program. Meanwhile, crude futures headed toward a quiet end to a record-breaking year Monday — but were expected to resume their unprecedented advance early next year on concerns about the security and sufficiency of world oil supply. Oil prices spent most of 2007 rising as demand from booming economies in Asia surged. Oil, gasoline and heating oil supplies, meanwhile, lagged well behind levels that many analysts consider sufficient, sparking price rallies based on fears of an impending shortage. While no shortage has developed, concerns that demand for oil and petroleum products is outpacing supply have driven oil, gasoline and heating oil futures to record prices.
On Monday, light, sweet crude for February delivery rose 34 cents to $96.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on supply concerns raised by minor outages at refineries in Texas and California and Iran’s plans to start up its first nuclear plant. Trading was light, as it has been throughout the holidays, meaning the price move could be exaggerated. Still, analysts see little standing in the way of oil’s ascent to $100 a barrel, or higher, once traders return from their holiday breaks. Oil prices peaked at $99.29 a barrel on Nov 21 and are up 58 percent this year. “I think there’s a good chance this week that we’ll see some record highs,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Illinois.
Gas and oil prices have reversed course in recent weeks after falling sharply in early December as oil inventories appeared to be growing, and several forecasters lowered demand growth predictions. But several weeks of falling inventories have combined with data suggesting demand remains strong to push oil futures back near record levels. Oil prices have been helped along by Turkish attacks on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, which raised concerns that the rebels would retaliate by attacking an oil pipeline, and by the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, which sparked worries about general instability in the volatile but oil-rich Middle East. Iran’s announcement Monday that it will start its first nuclear plant next summer is an example of a development that, while not directly threatening oil supplies, brings the West’s confrontation with the OPEC member sharply back to the fore.