OPEC producer Kuwait is planning to invest nearly $410 billion in hydrocarbon projects to boost oil and gas output capacity and hunt for more crude, a newspaper has said.
The Arabic language daily Alqabas, citing a government report, said the Gulf state aims to increase oil production capacity to 4 million barrels-per-day (bpd) in the long term to meet growing domestic consumption and demand by its Asian clients.
Kuwait, which controls the world’s sixth largest proven oil deposits, has already boosted oil output capacity from around 2.4 million bpd in 2020 to 2.9 million bpd and it is expected to climb to 3 million bpd in 2025.
The report by the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), which manages the country’s hydrocarbon industry, showed around 1.33 million bpd would be exported in 2025 to Asian markets while 319,000 would be consumed locally and the rest would be supplied to other markets.
It said KPC, one of the world’s largest oil companies, has set a target to reach 3.1 million bpd in 2026 and a peak of 4 million bpd in 2035, adding that about $10 billion would be invested annually in the next five years.
“KPC is planning to invest nearly $410 billion in the hydrocarbon sector in the next years…around $300 billion would be channelled into oil and gas production and exploration and the rest in other projects,” the report said, adding that gas production would rise from around 541 million cubic feet per day (mcf/d) currently to nearly 901 million mcf/d in 2026.