Kuwait desert oil spill sparks ‘state of emergency’: company

Kuwait desert oil spill sparks ‘state of emergency’: company

The Kuwait Oil Company declared a "state of emergency" Monday over an oil spill on land, in an incident decried by environmental activists as a "recurring problem" in the energy-rich Gulf state.

The emergency was sparked by an "oil leak in the west of the country", the state-owned company said in a statement, as video posted by Kuwaiti media showed a gushing pipe surrounded by a large slick of oil.

"No injuries have occurred as a result of the leak and production has not been affected," company spokesman Qusai Al-Amer was quoted as saying, adding that no toxic fumes had been reported.

The leak "occurred on land but not in a residential area", he later told AFP.

Teams have been dispatched to determine the source of the leak and contain the incident, Al-Amer said, declining to give the exact location or the extent of the spill.

Kuwait's Al Rai newspaper released a video on Twitter showing a pipe spewing large amounts of oil onto barren land. AFP could not independently verify the footage.

Kuwait is a major oil-producing country where nearly 90 percent of government revenues come from oil.

The key member within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is currently producing about 2.7 million