Kuwait City: Total, Europe's third-biggest oil company, is in talks with Kuwait to develop heavy crude deposits and extract fuel from fields in the country's north.
The company, Europe's largest refiner, is also considering joining a refinery project in China, Total Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said today.
China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and Kuwait are seeking to build the plant in the southern city of Zhanjiang.
"First you start with the where, how and what we can bring to the project," de Margerie said.
He said Total proposed using its skill in extracting more difficult crude and using enhanced oil recovery techniques that could raise production rates.
Kuwait, which holds about eight per cent of the world's crude reserves, aims to boost output capacity to four million barrels a day by 2020 and maintain that level for about a decade by expanding its deposits, Oil Minister Shaikh Ahmad Al Abdullah Al Sabah said.
