Kuwait’s 2015-16 budget, which starts next April, is likely to have a deficit of KD2.8bn ($9.58bn) before allocation of the mandatory revenue to the Reserve Fund for Future Generations (RFFG), the head of the Kuwaiti parliament’s budget committee ‘Adnan ‘Abd al-Samad says.

The new budget is provisionally based on an oil price assumption of $60/B and average crude oil production of 2.7mn b/d, compared to $75/B and 2.9mn b/d in 2014-15. More than 90% of budget revenue is derived from oil. For the first eight months of the current financial year (April-November 2014) Kuwaiti crude output averaged 2.83mn b/d according to MEES estimates, with November’s figure dipping to 2.77mn b/d, the lowest figure for three years after Saudi Arabia unilaterally shut down production from the 300,000 b/d Khafji field in the two countries’ shared Neutral Zone. (CONTINUED - 605 WORDS)