Kuwait–Saudi Arabia border

A line in the sand

Desert tribes had long resisted fixed boundaries, and control of an area rested with whoever held the tribesmen’s loyalty. After an 1899 treaty with Britain ended Turkish influence over Kuwait, the Uqair convention of 2 December 1922 drew its border with Najd, the future Saudi Arabia, and set aside a zone south of it where both governments would “share equal rights” until a later agreement.^[1]

The discovery of oil at Burgan in 1938 gave the question urgency. In 1960 Kuwait’s ruler and Saudi Arabia’s Amir Faysal decided to divide the zone; an agreement signed on 7 July 1965 partitioned it, and the demarcation took effect on 18 December 1969. The border starts in the Wadi al-Batin at what was in 1970 a quadripoint of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Iraq–Saudi neutral zone, and runs in three straight segments to the Gulf.^[1]

“The definition of a boundary in the desert has been described as similar to drawing a boundary in the ocean.”^[1]

Shared oil

Each country took half of the zone into its territory but they kept sharing and jointly managing its oil, from the onshore Wafra field and the offshore Khafji field. Khafji shut in 2014 after a dispute, and Wafra in May 2015, after Saudi Arabia extended Chevron’s concession there to 2039; Kuwait said it had not been consulted. After a deal in December 2019, the two countries authorised Wafra’s restart in February 2020.^[2]