Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) plans to raise the country’s oil production capacity to 3.2mn b/d by the end of this year, up from 2.9mn b/d a year ago (MEES, 7 July 2023). Capacity will come both from the fields in Kuwait operated by state firm Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) and those in the Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ) which is shared 50:50 with Saudi Arabia.
Kuwait’s oil sector is rebounding from a series of setbacks at the turn of the decade which saw KOC capacity slump from 3.15mn b/d at the end of the 2017-18 financial year in March 2018 to just 2.629mn b/d three years later. KOC capacity is supplemented by around 200,000 b/d from the PNZ – Kuwait’s share of production from the zone averaged around 160,000 b/d last year. As such KOC capacity will have to rise back to around 3mn b/d if the national 3.2mn b/d target is to be achieved. (CONTINUED - 1645 WORDS)
