Kuwait is maintaining crude production at around 3 million barrels a day (bpd), as the march towards peak driving and energy demand season begins.
Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) Chariman Sami al-Rashid told Reuters yesterday that the current rate of production leaves the State of Kuwait with spare production capacity of around 150,000 bpd.
KOC plans to start surveys of offshore reservoirs this year, Sami al-Rashid told journalists on the sidelines of a conference, as part of plans to raise Kuwait’s production capacity to 4 million barrels by 2020.
Kuwait has taken a key role in supplying China’s steep rise in oil demand growth. The sector has an ambitious national exploration and production program underway, both to meet external demand and provide feedstock to the country’s developing downstream industry, and a gas development project aims to put an end to summer brownouts as temperatures touching 50 degrees celsius elevate air conditioning use.
Exploratory drilling could also start this year if the surveys are successful, he said.
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