Kuwait is committed to cutting output by 131,000 b/d in January in line with its commitments under OPEC’s output reduction deal, oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said Thursday. That was despite Kuwait’s state-owned oil company making preparations to restart around 500,000 b/d of production from the Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ) shared with Saudi Arabia, which has been closed for nearly two years. “We started the primary heating and cleaning of operational equipment, pending a final decision from Kuwait’s leadership,” Marzouqi said, according to comments reported by state-run Kuna news agency. “Any increase in production from certain areas will be balanced by equal reductions in other regions”, the minister said. The two countries agreed to restart production from the 300,000 b/d offshore Khafji oil field at the end of March. Some analysts had said resuming production from the neutral zone, which has a combined output of 500,000 b/d, could temper the […]