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Kuwait’s crude oil exports have rebounded to about 1 million barrels per day (bpd), recovering to two-thirds of the 1.6 million bpd shipped through the Strait of Hormuz before the Iran war, according to a senior official at state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). Kuwait has managed to ramp up its crude oil shipments in recent weeks, including through ship-to-ship (STS) transfers outside the Strait of Hormuz. Shaikh Khaled Ahmad Al Sabah, managing director for international marketing at KPC, said on Tuesday at the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore: "We can supply all of our customers but some volumes are not the same as before." Buyers will have to pay more for KPC to deliver crude outside Hormuz to compensate for risks to transiting the chokepoint, while buyers prepared to load cargoes inside the Persian Gulf will receive discounts on the price of oil.
Kuwait and other Gulf producers have managed in recent weeks to raise their exports out of the Strait of Hormuz, including via shuttling cargoes just outside the Strait and transferring the oil on other vessels. Total daily flows out of Hormuz are currently estimated at about 10 million bpd, of which 9 million bpd are crude and the rest are fuels. As of the end of August, Qatar and Kuwait were estimated to have boosted their crude oil exports from the Strait of Hormuz to 70% of pre-war levels as they followed the United Arab Emirates in shuttling oil through the chokepoint and using ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.
Kuwait’s crude oil exports in August were 36% below the immediate pre-war baseline of January and February 2026, according to data from TankerTrackers.com. Kuwait is one of the Gulf producers to have recovered the most of the lost shipments.
