KUWAIT, (Reuters) – OPEC member Kuwait is expected to base its 2010/11 budget on a crude oil price of $45 a barrel, up 28.6 percent from the price used in the previous fiscal year, a newspaper reported on Monday.
In the 2009/10 fiscal year which ends in March, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter assumed its main revenue earner would fetch $35 a barrel.
A government’s budget committee raised the price to $45 after the approval of the government’s development plan, al-Watan newspaper said in an unsourced report.
The development plan runs until 2014 and aims at decreasing the country’s dependence on oil.
Kuwait’s Finance Minister Mustapha al-Shamali said in October that the Gulf Arab state would keep the oil price for the 2010/11 budget at $35 a barrel.
The world’s fourth-largest oil exporter logged a surplus of 6.32 billion dinars ($22.01 billion) in the first eight months of the fiscal year, which starts in April, due to higher oil revenues.