High Oil Prices Reduce Kuwait's Budget Deficit

  • Kuwait City, State of Kuwait
  • 19 February 2021
1

A barrel of Kuwaiti oil recorded a significant increase in the recent period, which would significantly reduce the estimated deficit in the state budget for the fiscal year 2020/2021.

According to a monitoring and analysis of the figures conducted by Al-Rai, the budget deficit for the current fiscal year may decrease by 3.856 billion dinars to reach about 10.2 billion, down by 27.4 percent compared to the estimated budget, which is 14.052 billion dinars when the volume of production is estimated at 2.5 million barrels per day at a price 30 dollars a barrel.

While the average price of a Kuwaiti barrel was about $54.8last January, according to a production rate of 2.3 million barrels per day, according to specialized reports, Kuwait achieved revenues last month amounting to about $3.907 billion, equivalent to 1.18 billion dinars. As for the month of February, and with the Kuwaiti barrel continuing its upward journey, recording about $63.55 at its last trading, the average price of a barrel during the elapsed period of the month would have reached about $59.22 a barrel.

Assuming that the average price remains the same for the whole month of February, and production remains stable at January levels, oil revenues during the current month may reach about $3.813 billion, equivalent to 1.15 billion dinars. If we assume the price of Kuwaiti oil during next March at the levels of the prices of the elapsed period in February and the level of production last January, then the oil revenues of Kuwait during the next month will reach 4.22 billion dollars, or about 1.28 billion dinars.

According to these assumptions, the total oil revenues will reach 11.942 billion dollars during the last 3 months of the current fiscal year, equivalent to 3.62 billion dinars, which constitutes about 61.7 percent of the total oil revenues achieved in the first 9 months of the fiscal year, amounting to about 5.864 billion Dinars, according to the monthly reports of the Ministry of Finance.

Source (Al-Rai Newspaper-Kuwait, Edited)

Get an annual subscription in the quarterly Arab Economic bulletin

SUBSCRIBE NOW