KUWAIT: A unit of state-owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) will launch a tender later this year for the construction of facilities to produce heavy oil at a cost of up to 1.2 billion dinars or $4.2 billion, its chief executive said.
KOC, a division of Kuwait Petroleum Corp, also plans to drill 260 wells in the Gulf Arab state during the 2013/2014 fiscal year at a cost of 600-700 million dinars, KOC CEO Hashem Hashem said.
This is part of efforts to meet Kuwait's target of producing 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2020, he told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference late on Monday.
OPEC member Kuwait currently produces around 3 million barrels of oil a day and exports around two-thirds.
KOC said last month it expects to produce far less heavy crude from the Ratqa field and less light oil from the Jurassic field by 2020 than originally hoped and did not answer questions about whether it would reach its 2020 production target. (Reuters)
