Kuwait’s oil minister is skeptical about the need—and the ability—of the state oil company to spend close to US$500 billion on an expansion program that should run until 2040, Reuters reports, citing local media. Khaled al-Fadhel said he was not against the expansion as such, but added that he believed the projected US$495 billion (150 billion dinars) to fuel this expansion are “optimistic.” Kuwait, along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, contributes half of OPEC’s total, Wood Mackenzie’s chief analyst Simon Flowers noted in a recent article for Forbes, adding that oil industry expenditure in the three countries has ... (full story)