KUWAIT CITY, Nov 23, (Agencies): The production capacity of Kuwait’s northern oil fields will soon rise to 820,000 barrels per day (bpd), state news agency KUNA quoted a senior oil industry executive as saying on Tuesday.
Sami Al-Rushaid, chairman of the state explorer Kuwait Oil Co (KOC), said current output from an early production facility will add 120,000 barrels per day once it reaches full capacity.
The agency did not give a more specific time frame for the increase. Kuwait, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, plans to boost output capacity to 4 million bpd by 2020 from the current 3.3 million bpd.
Rushaid said KOC had relied chiefly on its own capabilities to raise crude production from its northern oilfields, with little help from international oil companies (IOC).
He added that Project Kuwait, a multibillion-dollar plan to develop northern fields would take a new form with the help of IOCs. A possible new form is still under discussion.
Parliament has opposed the project for years, fearing foreign companies will get a share of the oil wealth.
Rushaid said last month that new models were being considered for the project including enhanced technical service agreements with IOCs.


Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has shut down several units at its Mina Al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah refineries for maintenance, which will last about three weeks to 40 days, an official at KNPC told Reuters on Tuesday. “These are all planned outages,” said the official who declined to be named, adding that the shutdowns started on Tuesday.
He said KNPC’s third refinery Shuaiba was running normally.
KNPC runs Kuwait’s three oil refineries which have a combined capacity of around 930,000 bpd. The country is the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter.


Royal Dutch Shell will launch bunker operations at the United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Ali port in mid-2011 and aims to expand its marine fuel business in the Middle East over the next three to five years, a senior executive said.
The oil major, which operates in more than 800 ports globally, will set up a barge in the busy oil blending centre and will offer fuels and lubricants to vessels both on a long-term contract and on a spot basis.
“It is going to be one of the highest capacity barges worldwide for lubricants as well as fuels,” Moustafa Khater, regional business optimization manager at Shell Marine Products, told Reuters on Tuesday.
The company is currently delivering only lubricants to the Jebel Ali port via trucks.
“In the next three to five years, Shell is looking at being an integral part of the marine products and services segment in Jebel Ali,” Khater said in an emailed response to questions.
But he declined to give a figure for the capacity of the barge or precise figures for the level of investment and targeted volumes.
“By early next year, we will be placing offers to our customers and partners for longer-term contracts for fuels and lubricants and shall also target new customers who might be interested in our upcoming activity in Jebel Ali,” he said.
Shell says customers want to reduce the time and costs of refuelling and that the company plans to offer an integrated package of fuels and lubricants from the same delivery vessel to meet that demand.


Price of the Kuwaiti crude oil decreased $2.22 per barrel in the Monday operations settling at the level of 80.19 pb compared to the Friday trading when it stood at $82.41 pb.
The drop of the crude oil price came as the US dollar rate increased versus other major currencies as a result of abstention of taking risks on part of the invetsors as a result of anticipated failure of the bail-out scheme of the Irish economy.
Opec, which supplies oil to around 35 percent of the world, has declared the price of its basket of curdes at $81.9 pb.
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VIENNA: The price of the 12-crude basket of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) went down to USD 80.96 per barrel (pb) on Monday, after scoring $81.41 pb last Friday, the cartel said Tuesday.
The annual average of the basket price last year had amounted to $76.11 pb.
The Opec basket is made up of Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE), and Merey (Venezuela).
Opec oil ministers in their latest meeting had opted to maintain the output ceiling at an unchanged level of 24.8 million barrels per day.
They are scheduled to hold their next meeting on 11 December at the Ecuadorian capital of Quito to discuss the cartel’s output, supply and demand policies.