Kuwait’s state oil operator has pre-qualified five international oil majors to bid for a five-year consultancy contract for a USD-multi-billion project to lift its crude production capacity to 3.65 million bpd by 2020, an oil official was quoted on Sunday as saying.
Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, France’s Total, Exxon Mobil and Chevron of the US have been asked to submit bids by the Kuwait oil company (KOC), which runs the Gulf emirate’s massive hydrocarbon sector, KOC’s CEO Hashim Sayed Hashim said, quoted by the Kuwaiti Arabic language daily Al Anba.
He said the project aims to increase Kuwait’s oil output capacity to 3.65 million bpd and gas production to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day by 2020.
The project consists of three parts including expansion of oil fields in the north and the south as well as development of heavy crude in northern fields.
“This increase involves big technical and technological challenges…hence KOC needs help from international companies to implement its project strategy,” he said.
”We have selected five such companies to bid for a contract to help us execute these giant projects….KOC will issue a tender for those firms to sign a five-year consultancy contract for those projects starting from fiscal 2015-2016 year.”
Al Anba said Hashim did not mention investment involved in those projects but said the heavy crude project alone would cost around KD1.2 billion (USD 4.2 billion).
Kuwait, a key pec producer, has been locked in a USD-multi-billion programme to expand its crude, refining and petrochemicals output capacity.
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