LONDON (Reuters) – Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) sees continued good demand for oil from China in the second half of the year, its chief executive said on Thursday, speaking to Reuters as part of a podcast series hosted by the Al Attiyah Foundation.
“We see that from (…) our customers in China, our largest customer for KPC for crude oil, those customers continue to demand at least similar amounts of crude if not more and it is a harbinger, if you will, of continued good demand,” Sheikh Nawaf Saud al-Sabah said.
Sheikh Nawaf also said Kuwait’s market share in China was stable despite increasing Russian exports into Asia on the back of Western sanctions on Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine.
“We have had customers, our largest customers in China for decades, and they will continue to be that way because we have long term relationships with them,” he said.
Kuwait, an OPEC producer, has been boosting oil products exports to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas after the Western sanctions on Russia reshuffled energy trade routes.
On Thursday, Sheikh Nawaf said the country had taken advantage of the increased demand in Europe for its fuel oil and middle distillates.
“We have the product available to go to Europe and we are capturing those opportunities,” he said.
(Reporting by Axel Threlfall in London; Writing by Maha El Dahan in Dubai; Editing by Nadine Awadalla and Mark Potter)