Kuwaits oil sector is expected to expand by four per cent in six years, a Kuwait Finance House (KFH) report has announced
As the world's eighth-largest oil producer and accounting for over three per cent of global production, oil income comprises over 90 per cent of budget revenue and merchandise exports in Kuwait, said the report.
The country is reportedly home to the seventh-largest proven oil reserves in the world at 101.5bn barrels.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has predicted that Kuwait will remain as one of the world's top oil producers as the country pushes towards a target of four million bpd of production capacity by 2020, said the report.
In December 2013, Kuwait's oil production had dropped to 2.9mn bpd from three million bpd.
The slight drop in Kuwait's oil production is in line with the slowdown in recent OPEC's oil output and other member countries. OPEC crude production dropped to the lowest level in more than two years in December 2013, led by a decline in Venezuelan output.
OPEC is expected to produce at below the group's agreed ceiling of 30mn bpd in Q1 2014 and that is a major support for the stability of current price levels, according to Kuwait's efforts to develop its heavy oil capacity are part of the country's plan to increase overall crude oil output to four million barrels per day by 2020 from current production of approximately three million barrels per day.
Meanwhile Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) plans to develop the Ratqa field and the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) tender would cover the first phase of the development with a target of 60,000 bpd of additional production by 2017. This will involve the construction of the production facility as well pipelines, steam-generation facilities and an oil export facility, the report added. The second phase is expected to boost production by an additional 120,000 bpd by 2020 and 270,000 bpd by 2030. According to the KOC, the target is that some 260 wells will be drilled in fiscal year 2013/14 as part of plans to drill around 1,500 wells in the first phase of the project, said the report.
