Kuwait Oil Production

Production and exports by year

Kuwait has been one of OPEC's five largest producers for decades. Its output is set by the OPEC+ quota rather than by geology, so the series below tracks group decisions closely: lower in 2023–2024 under voluntary cuts, higher from 2025 as the cuts were unwound.

Fields, grades and the Neutral Zone

The Burgan field in south-east Kuwait, discovered in 1938, is one of the largest oilfields in the world and supplies most of Kuwait's output and exports. Its medium, sour crude is the basis of Kuwait Export Crude (KEC), the country's main grade. According to the EIA, Kuwait added a super light grade from its Jurassic fields in 2018 and a heavy grade from the South Ratqa and Umm Niqa fields in 2020.

Kuwait shares the Neutral Zone (Partitioned Zone) 50:50 with Saudi Arabia. Its Wafra and Al-Khafji fields restarted in early 2020 after a five-year shutdown and produced about 300,000 b/d in 2022, split equally. Like other Gulf crude sold to Asia, Kuwaiti barrels are priced off the Middle East sour benchmarks; see the Dubai crude oil price and sweet vs sour crude.

Spare capacity and the 4 mb/d target

Kuwait is one of only a few OPEC+ members with meaningful spare capacity, the gap between what it can produce and what its quota allows. The oil minister put capacity at 3.2 mb/d in September 2025, and KPC's chief executive described 3 mb/d as maximum sustainable capacity in October 2026. KPC aims for 4 mb/d of capacity by 2035, which it says needs $9–10 billion of investment a year. Spare capacity is what allows Kuwait to raise output quickly when OPEC+ decides to add barrels, and it is one of the buffers markets watch when oil prices spike.

Refining expansion: Al-Zour

Kuwait has shifted from exporting crude towards exporting fuels. Refining capacity rose from about 600,000 b/d in January 2021 to about 1.4 mb/d in July 2023, according to the EIA. The jump came from the Al-Zour refinery (615,000 b/d), whose three crude units started between November 2022 and July 2023, and from upgrades at Mina Abdullah (454,000 b/d) and Mina Al-Ahmadi (346,000 b/d). KPC says Al-Zour made it Europe's largest jet fuel supplier and second-largest diesel supplier before 2026. KPC also holds stakes in refineries in Oman (Duqm), Vietnam and Italy.

2026: the Hormuz shock

Unlike Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Kuwait has no pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. When shipping through the strait almost stopped after US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026, Kuwait had nowhere to send its oil:

• 7 March 2026: KPC declared force majeure and began cutting crude output and refinery runs, citing Iranian threats to shipping and attacks on Kuwait.
• 17 April 2026: KPC invoked force majeure on crude and refined product shipments. Output was at its lowest since the early 1990s, and oil infrastructure had been hit several times.
• September–October 2026: production recovered to 1.77 mb/d in September and just over 2 mb/d by early October, as more tankers risked the transit and KPC used its own fleet and ship-to-ship transfers. KPC said Iranian strikes had damaged refineries and its headquarters, and that it was in talks with Saudi Arabia and the UAE about using their pipelines and ports.

The loss of Kuwaiti, Iraqi and other Gulf barrels was a main reason Brent traded above $100 for much of 2026.

Kuwait in OPEC+

Kuwait is a founding member of OPEC (1960) and one of the group of OPEC+ countries that made extra voluntary cuts in 2023. It usually votes with Saudi Arabia. It was among the seven countries, with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman, that met on 6 September 2026 and kept October production targets unchanged, according to OPEC. With physical output far below target in 2026, the quota has not been the binding limit. Read more in our OPEC+ explainer.

Oil and the state budget

The IMF said in February 2026 that the hydrocarbon share of Kuwait's government revenue "remains the highest in the GCC". The 2026/27 budget expected KD 12.8 billion of oil revenue out of KD 16.3 billion in total, about 78%. Kuwait's finance minister put the fiscal break-even oil price for 2026/27 at $90.5 per barrel, against a budget assumption of $57. The Kuwait Investment Authority, which calls itself the world's first sovereign wealth fund, manages the savings; the IMF estimated its assets at about 640% of GDP at the end of 2025.