Kuwait needs at least $64b to develop industry

Kuwait City: Kuwait needs to invest at least $64 billion in coming years to develop its energy industry and boost its oil output capacity, a senior oil industry official said yesterday.

"We will need at least $64 billion for our oil projects," Nabeel Boresly, vice managing-director of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), told a conference. He said the figure was conservative and may have to be increased by 10-15 per cent.

The latest investment forecast tops by far previous estimates that put the figure at around $45 billion. KPC is in overall control of the country's energy sector.

Boresly reiterated Kuwait's plan to raise its crude output capacity to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020 from about 2.6 million bpd now, adding that a further increase was possible.

New refinery

"We'll try to study reaching to 5 million barrels by 2020," he said.

Kuwait controls nearly a tenth of global oil reserves.

Boresly said that out of total investments needed by Kuwait, around $26 billion would be directed to hydrocarbon exploration and production inside the country with an additional $4 billion for exploration and production activities abroad.

The investments include Project Kuwait, a $8.5 billion scheme involving multinationals, to upgrade four major domestic oilfields to raise output to 900,000 bpd from 500,000 bpd.

Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co, a unit of KPC in charge of exploration outside Kuwait, has said it aims to produce 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2010.

Boresly said $17 billion would be used to develop refining and downstream operations at home, including building a new refinery with a capacity of 625,000 bpd that is expected to be completed in 2010.