In an interview with Sky News Arabia on Thursday, Kuwait’s Oil Minister, Saad Al-Barak, stated that Kuwait “will begin exploration and production in the Al-Dorra gas field without waiting for the delineation of borders with Iran”.
Al-Barak had previously asserted that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia possess an “exclusive right” to the Al-Dorra gas field in the Gulf, and he called on Iran to commence with the demarcation of its maritime borders to verify its claims on the field.
Tehran has claimed a stake in the field and labelled the Saudi-Kuwaiti agreement signed last year for its development as “illegal”.
Kuwait, on the other hand, insists that it, along with Saudi Arabia, holds “exclusive rights” to the offshore field and the two countries agreed to jointly develop it last year.
Earlier this month, Riyadh confirmed that only “Saudi Arabia and Kuwait” own the right to exploit the natural resources in the field disputed with Iran, after Tehran announced its readiness to begin exploration in the resource-rich Gulf waters.
Known as “Arash” in Iran and “Al-Dorra” in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Tehran claims it falls within its exclusive economic zone, a dispute that began several decades ago.
Last year, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to develop the field, despite Tehran’s objection, which deemed the deal “illegitimate”. The ongoing dispute over the Al-Dorra field dates back to the 1960s when Iran granted a marine concession to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, later renamed “BP”, while Kuwait granted the concession to “Royal Dutch Shell”.
The two concessions overlap in the northern section of the field, whose estimated natural gas reserves amount to about 220 billion cubic meters. Over the years, Iran and Kuwait conducted talks about their gas-rich maritime boundaries, but all have failed.
