Kuwait’s oil revenues have improved lately as oil prices rose above the barrier of $65 a barrel, government sources said.
The first ten months of the fiscal year 2020-2021 witnessed good figures for Kuwait’s oil revenues.
Kuwait’s oil revenues amounted to 6.7 billion dinars ($22.1 billion), registering the collection ratio to the budgeted figure of 119.3%.
Kuwait’s oil revenues
The revenues generated in 10 months exceeded the projected for the entire fiscal year, which is set at 5.6 billion dinars ($18.4 billion).
Kuwait’s oil revenues improvement in is owed to the reduction of the price of a barrel of oil estimated in the budget to $30 instead of $55, and the country’s production volume at 2.5 million instead of 2.7 million barrels per day, in line with Kuwait’s share in OPEC.
Overall, in the first ten months of the fiscal year, from April 2020 to the end of January 2021, the budget achieved a deficit of 5.4 billion dinars ($17.8 billion).
Expenditures for government agencies amounted to 10.9 billion dinars ($36.3 billion), and the commitment amounted to about 2.3 billion dinars ($7.5 billion).
Great surges
During January (the tenth month of the budget), the price of oil barrel began to rise dramatically. The month began with the level of $53 a barrel and jumped to $56 a barrel during the month’s trading.
The Ministry of Oil holds the largest share of the revenues, followed by the Ministry of Electricity and Water, the General Administration of Customs, the Ministry of Finance represented by the General Administration, and finally the Ministry of Health.
In a related context, Kuwait suffers from a stifling financial crisis, as the Kuwaiti government submitted a bill to Parliament requesting permission to withdraw up to five billion dinars annually from the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
The request to withdraw from the Future Generations Fund – the first of its kind since the Gulf War – aims to help financing the country’s escalating deficit, in addition to the planned debt law that the government hopes to pass.
