Overnight Kuwait oil rig fire 'now contained'

Kuwait's state-run oil company has said that a fire on an onshore oil rig in the country's southwestern oilfield was now under control.

The Kuwait Oil Co. said early on Monday that a fire broke out while an emergency team responded to what it described as a "minor" leak at al-Maqwa field.

The company said the fire caused no injuries and production continued at the field. It did not offer an estimate for the number of barrels of oil spilled in the leak.

The company acknowledged another spill at the field earlier this month, without elaborating.

OPEC member Kuwait, a tiny emirate on the Arabian Gulf, is a major oil producer. Kuwait produces some 2.9 million barrels of crude oil a day and holds the world's sixth-largest oil reserves.

Last week Omani and Kuwaiti oil ministers called on OPEC and non-OPEC producers to continue their unprecedented cooperation to maintain stability in the energy market.

Producers from the OPEC oil cartel and non-OPEC countries struck a deal in 2016 to trim production by 1.8 million barrels per day to rebalance the market after its collapse in 2014.

The deal, which runs out at the end of this year, has succeeded in boosting oil prices above $70 a barrel from below $30 a barrel in early 2016.

Kuwait's Oil Minister Bakheet al-Rasheedi said he believes that oil producers were on the right path to restore stability to the oil market.

"A year ago, there was a surplus of 340 million barrels of oil. At the end of February, the surplus dropped to 50 million barrels and we believe we are on the right path to get rid of this surplus," Rasheedi told reporters.