08-01-99 Kuwait has signalled it will take early action to privatise its huge shipowning operation, Kuwait Oil Tanker, and the sister company specialising in petrochemicals.
The state will continue to hold a stake, as yet unquantified. Observers said the strategy was in line with other Middle Eastern attempts to attract international capital as a counterweight to falling oil revenues.
Budget calculations are coming under threat in several countries because of the low crude price.

The country's willingness to sell part of the tanker enterprise, which controls more than 30 crude oil, products and LPG carriers, has been underlined by oil minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah.
The minister is a member of the ruling family and head of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum.
Last year the tanker company took delivery of 2 308,700 dwt vessels, and plans to buy 5 new products carriers, starting from 1999.
It made a record net profit in the 12 months to June 1998 of Dinar 24.1 mm ($ 79.3 mm).

Kuwait Petroleum, one of the world's largest oil companies, is being restructured with increasing emphasis on the downstream sector.
It is a producer and explorer of oil and gas, owns several refineries and is a significant charterer of large tanker tonnage.
The company operates roadside petrol stations in Europe and a retail chain, Q8. Sheikh Saud said the company was considering entering petrol retailing in the US.

He believed that mergers and marketing arrangements between oil majors opened new opportunities for Kuwait Petroleum.
He said an international firm of consultants would study the privatisation of the tanker company and of Petrochemical Industries.
He was keen to move with the proposed privatisation "in the near future. I hope we get done with this soon."
Sheikh Saud defined the two companies as investment sector firms, as opposed to strategic sectors like other parts of Kuwait Petroleum over which the state must continue to exercise total control.
Kuwait Petroleum wanted to move away from dependence on crude oil exports.
Petrochemical Industries and Union Carbide of the US each have a 45 % stake in Kuwait's $ 2 bn Equate project, which has annual production capacity of 650,000 tonnes of ethylene, 450,000 tonnes of polyethylene and 350,000 tonnes of ethylene glycol.