KUWAIT: Kuwait will raise production from its northern oilfields to 820,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of July, a senior oil official said in remarks published on Tuesday. Sami Al-Rushaid, chief executive of state-run oil and gas exploration and production arm Kuwait Oil Co, told the Al-Seyassah daily that current production from those fields was at 720,000 barrels per day. Kuwait's total production capacity is expected to reach 3.3 million bpd in August, the official said, reiterating the country's current capacity was at 3.17 million bpd. The world's fourth-largest oil exporter aims to reach a capacity of 4 million barrels a day in 2020. Kuwait's output is constrained under OPEC agreements to 2.22 million bpd currently. Rushaid said KOC was planning to produce 60,000 bpd of heavy oil by 2015 and that the country's new refinery would be designed to process heavy oil, which is mainly found in the northern oilfields and an area shared with Saudi Arabia. The $15 billion refinery, which will be Kuwait's fourth, is expected to receive the green light from Kuwait's highest oil policy body before the end of the year. Another KOC official, Hashem Hashem, told Al-Jarida daily in an interview published on Tuesday that the company was working on a plan to increase production from the country's second-largest reservoir, Al-Wara, by 80,000 bpd to reach 350,000 bpd by 2014. Hashem, who heads operations in southern and eastern Kuwait, said Kuwait's largest oilfield, the Greater Burgan, was capable of pumping oil for the next 60 years. The oilfield is the second-largest in the world. He confirmed reports that the oilfield was bigger than past estimates but declined to elaborate, saying the results of studies would be announced in due time.
