Kuwait plans to make capacity to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020
Kuwait will spend billions of dollars on oil and gas exploration over the next five years as the country gears up to boost its oil output capacity to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020, a Kuwaiti official said.
Kuwait, which is a member of Opec, currently pumps around 3 million bpd, mainly from maturing oilfields.
“We already have spent half a billion [dollars] and from today we are going to spend another half a billion dollars for completing the seismic [survey] of the total of Kuwait over the upcoming five years, Ahmad Al Eidan, manager of exploration at state-run Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) told reporters on the sidelines of Adipec conference in Abu Dhabi.
“We do have a formation which consists of salt and that salt is really affecting the waves that are coming back. That’s why we are developing seismic to a level to see and image deeper horizons. We are talking about the exploration of wells which are high cost.”
KOC has another exploration project coming in the pipeline which will cost $200 million to $250m, he added, without giving details.
Kuwait, which mainly produces oil from onshore fields, is trying to beef up offshore oil and gas exploration to help boost its output. Some new exploration areas are proving to be hard to develop.
“It will cost above $1 billion to $1.5bn to do drilling for the offshore [fields],” said Mr Al Eidan. “It is different places, different ways, and we are looking from the surface down to Paleozoic [formations] from 1000 feet down to 24,000. So we are looking at all of this.”
Kuwait is in dire need of boosting its gas output, which is mainly gas associated with oil that is subject to oil production quotas set by Opec.
The country began importing liquefied natural gas, which is gas cooled to liquid to be transported by ships, in 2009 to meet its gas shortage. Kuwait is also looking at unconventional oil and gas resources to help meet the country’s needs.
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are beginning to look at unconventional resources, particularly gas, to help cater to rising domestic demand for gas in industries and power generation, and to free up oil burned for power generation for export.
Saudi Arabia is focusing on four areas for exploration of unconventional resources: the north, South of Ghawar field and Jufarah in the east and the Empty Quarter in the south east, Ibraheem Assa’adan, executive director of exploration at state-run Saudi Aramoc said at a panel at Adipec.
“We are trying to spread the activities kingdom-wide to create local economic development in remote regions of the kingdom,” Mr Assa’adan said.
He cited water and sand as challenges for the unconventional energy industry in the desert kingdom, which began executing its unconventional exploration programme around two years ago.
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