DHAHRAN, June 22: The Gulf oil producer Kuwait, an important Opec member, is targeting to increase its crude production capacity to about four million bpd by 2020, from the current 2.4 million bpd, it was reported.

In 1995/96, the Kuwaiti Supreme Petroleum Council approved a plan to increase the production capacity to 3 million bpd. “There has been a revision and a new target (of 4 million bpd) has been set,” Ahmed al-Arbeed, the Kuwait Oil Company Chairman and Managing Director was quoted here as saying. A majority of the planned increment in production would be from the northern oilfields.

The bulk of the increase will come from the $7,000 million Project Kuwait, which entails enlisting the support of the International Oil Companies (IOCs) in doubling production from the its northern oilfields to 900,000 barrels a day.

Kuwait current onshore production stands at around 2.25 million bpd. The prolific Burgan field has a capacity to produce 1.35 million bpd followed by a total of 150,000 bpd from the Umm Gudair and Minagish oilfields. The remaining volumes are produced from the northern oilfields. Kuwait’s share from the Saudi-Kuwaiti Neutral zone is about 150,000 bpd.

At the start of 2002, Kuwait’s crude capacity was reported to be 2.7 million bpd. However, a major explosion at the Rawdhatan oilfield has seen capacity drop by about 300,000 bpd, it was reported here.

Meanwhile, the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is gearing up for a new round of development following the expiry of the drilling rights of the Japanese company Arabian Oil Company (AOC) on both sides of the zone. The Aramco Gulf Operations Company (AGOC) and the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC), responsible for running the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, plan to invest about $1,200 million over the next five years in maintaining and increasing production from the offshore oilfields in the Neutral Zone. A major part of the investment will be in maintaining the existing facilities and also increasing production to 350,000 bpd from the current 300,000 bpd. Both the Saudi and the Kuwaiti company would be investing equally in the project to expand the facilities at the joint production area.

The AGOC and the KGOC are set to enter a period of heavy maintenance work in the Neutral Zone to counter a low rate of investment in recent years.