Durra gas field belongs to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, GCC reaffirms

The Ministerial Council of the Gulf Cooperation Council has reaffirmed the "exclusive right" of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the disputed Durra gas field on the eastern border of the submerged area in the Gulf.

In a statement following its ministerial meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday, the Gulf Cooperation Council affirmed that "the ownership of the natural resources in the submerged area adjacent to the Saudi-Kuwaiti divided zone, including the entire Durra field, belongs to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait only.”

It added: "We reject any claims regarding the rights of any other party to the Durra field."

It also welcomed that the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia and Iran began their diplomatic missions.

Iran has previously said it has a stake in the Durra field and called a Saudi-Kuwaiti agreement signed last year to develop it "illegal."

In July, Iran said that it would pursue its rights over the field if other parties shunned cooperation, after Kuwait's oil minister said his country would start drilling and begin production without waiting for border demarcation with Iran.

Dispute lingers

Durra, a natural gas field in the northern Gulf with an estimated 220 billion cubic metres of gas, continues to be a contention between Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The row over the field stretches back to the 1960s, when Iran and Kuwait each awarded an offshore concession, one to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the forerunner to BP, and one to Royal Dutch Shell.

While Kuwait and Saudi Arabia refer to the offshore natural gas field located in the neutral zone between Iran and Saudi Arabia as Durra, Iran calls it Arash.

Iran and Kuwait have held unsuccessful talks for many years over their disputed maritime border area, which is rich in natural gas.