#Kuwait’s State Oil Company to Seek Up to $20 Billion of Funding - Bloomberg

Kuwait’s State Oil Company to Seek Up to $20 Billion of Funding - Bloomberg

The state oil company of Kuwait plans to borrow as much as $20 billion over the next five years to make up for an expected shortfall in funding, a person familiar with the matter said.

Kuwait Petroleum Corp. will need the money to maintain the petrostate’s crude-production levels, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information is private.

The borrowing plan underscores how badly Persian Gulf countries were impacted by the drop in crude prices last year as the coronavirus pandemic spread and energy demand plunged.

The company remits almost everything it generates from crude sales to the OPEC member’s government. It then gets reimbursed in installments to fund capital expenditure, mainly for upstream operations and investments in oil fields. The firm may face a deficit of 6 billion dinars ($19.9 billion) over five years, though it hopes to minimize the gap by becoming more efficient, the person said.