Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (Adma-Opco), a unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) plans to increase its crude production capacity by 14.2 per cent to 700,000 barrels per day by the end of 2014, a top-ranking company official said yesterday.

"The expansion at the Lower Zakum field will take its capacity to 425,000 barrels per day from the current 325,000 barrels per day," Adma-Opco's chief executive Ali Rashid Al Jarwan told reporters in the capital on the sidelines of the first KPMG GCC Energy conference.

"The capacity at the field will be ramped up by the end of 2012. The field will attain its full capacity by the end of 2014," he added.

Al Jarwan said the current cumulative production capacity at Adma-Opco's oilfields was 600,000 barrels per day.

Water injection upgrade

Adma-Opco said earlier this year that the offshore construction for the Zakum water injection upgrade project, which is aimed at increasing oil output by 100,000 barrels per day from the Lower Zakum field, is set for completion by June 2012.

The construction of the Zakum water injection project began last June.

The project will upgrade the water injection facilities and instal a new water injection platform meant to enhance the water injection volumes.

Adma-Opco, majority-owned by Abu Dhabi's state oil firm, plans to spend at least $10 billion (Dh36.7 billion) developing two offshore fields to boost the firm's crude output 60 per cent by 2017, Al Jarwan said last year.

Adma-Opco is 60 per cent owned by Adnoc.

"By 2017, we will produce 970,000 bpd and the expected investment for the two new fields is $10 billion," Al Jarwan said last year. Adma-Opco is also developing two offshore oil fields — Umm Al Lulu and Nasr.

The UAE intends to increase its oil production capacity to 3.5 million bpd by 2018 from 2.7 million bpd to meet the rising global oil demand.

Last year, Abdul Munim Al Kindy, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (Adco) told reporters he was hoping new capacity of 213,000 bpd would come on stream in 2012.

He also said at the time, service contracts will be awarded in 2012 for projects that will bring on stream additional new capacity of 200,000 barrels per day by 2016.