(MENAFN- Arab Times) KUWAIT CITY Oct 28 (Agencies): Chevron Corp. has been asked by Kuwait to move its offices out of Mina Al-Zour located in the neutral zone which Kuwait shares with Saudi Arabia; in the midst of tension between the two Middle Eastern countries over the concession granted to the US oil firm operating in the zone. Presently Chevron controls Saudi Arabia's 50 percent share of the Wafra field in the neutral zone that currently produces an estimated 200000 barrels of oil per day but Chevron has been facing trouble in the zone ever since Saudi Arabia renewed its concession for 30 more years in 2009 without consulting Kuwait and now the latter wants to establish an oil refinery in the zone that houses Chevron.
The concession was earlier granted to the United State's Getty Oil Co. which was later procured by Texaco in 1949 until Chevron took over Texaco in 2001. Kuwait has since refused to renew work permits for the workers of Chevron in the zone and officially requested Chevron to relocate said a senior Kuwaiti official familiar with the issue. Kuwait's officials have said the Gulf state had initially thought the renewal of Chevron's concession would apply only to its workers in the Wafra field and wouldn't include Mina al-Zour area previously leased to Chevron. 'The Saudi side without consulting us assumed we could continue to lease the land as Mina al-Zour port is used for exporting Wafra crude production but we wanted the land back to build the refinery' said another official. Chevron declined to comment on Kuwait's request to move out of Mina Al-Zour but said 'its onshore operations in the Partitioned Zone are strictly governed by the terms of the agreement' and 'we comply with the rules and regulations of the countries where we operate'. A recent letter sent to the Kuwaiti Oil Ministry by president of the Saudi unit of Chevron Ahmad Al-Omer and seen by The Wall Street Journal warned that the current labor situation could lead to a drop in or a total halt of production at Wafra and lead to significant financial losses for the parties involved. Last year Saudi Arabia and Kuwait abandoned a project to develop the Dorra offshore natural gas field in the shared zone after failing to agree on how to share the gas output. Earlier this month the two countries halted production at Khafji a jointly run oil field due to environmental concerns.
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