Kuwait will increase its oil production capacity to about 3.6 million b/d by 2022, according to a study by the emirate's Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies (DCSS).
The official KUNA news agency reported Wednesday that the study said there were several factors that would keep Kuwait's oil output capacity on an upward path through 2022, including development of untapped heavy oil reserves and projects to maintain production from existing fields.
Kuwait's current crude output capacity is about 3.1 million b/d. The emirate produced 2.8 million b/d in April, the latest Platts survey of OPEC production showed.
The DCSS said Kuwait was conducting studies related to potential oil shale resources and planned to develop its deep, high-pressure reserves of non-associated sour gas in an effort to more than triple gas production capacity by 2030.
Kuwait produced 13 billion cubic meters (1.3 Bcf/d) of gas in 2011, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
Rising domestic demand for oil and gas is among the main challenges facing Kuwait's economy, the DCSS said. It also said the emirate needed foreign expertise to help it tap its technically challenging non-associated gas reserves.
Kuwait is already a net gas importer, purchasing LNG cargoes in the summer months to meet peak energy demand during the Persian Gulf's peak air-conditioning season.
Prior to a management shake-up earlier in May, state-owned Kuwait Oil Company was seeking to increase the emirate's oil production capacity to 3.65 million b/d by 2020 and 4 million b/d by 2030, while raising non-associated gas output roughly 10-fold to 1.5 Bcf/d by 2030.
Kuwait currently obtains most of its gas supplies from its oil fields. Associated gas production, however, is limited by oil output, which in turn is subject to OPEC quotas.
