UAE and Kuwait start oil output cuts after Hormuz blockage

The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply.  

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp. said it was lowering production at both its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.”

The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas, to maritime traffic following Iranian threats to shipping. That’s clogged up exports from the world’s top oil-producing region and helped drive prices in London to the highest close in more than two years at almost $93 a barrel, sending consumers searching for alternatives and threatening to push global inflation higher.   

Kuwait’s oil cutback started with about 100,000 barrels a day as of early Saturday and is expected to almost triple on Sunday, with further gradual reductions depending on storage levels and the status of Hormuz, a person with direct knowledge of the plan said, asking not to be named because the details are private.

The UAE, which pumped more than 3.5 million barrels a day as OPEC’s third-biggest producer in January, is using export capacity that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, and its internat...