Kuwait

Opec member Kuwait is preparing to start its first-ever offshore drilling campaign as it seeks to develop more of its hydrocarbon reserves to help meet the world’s future energy demand, a top official said. “We have now taken the first step into exploration offshore — we never touched the offshore in Kuwait,” the CEO of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), Shaikh Nawaf al-Sabah, told the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. “The first offshore drill rig arrived in Kuwait about a week ago and will spud soon,” Shaikh Nawaf said. US services firm Halliburton in July 2019 said it would start work on a contract to explore and develop Kuwait's offshore reserves from mid-2020 by drilling the first of six high-pressure, high-temperature exploration wells offshore Kuwait. However, the campaign was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Kuwait produces virtually all of its oil from the onshore, including the massive Burgan field. Shaikh Nawaf added that Kuwait had increased its “investments in building capacity to meet the requirements of the future,” and the country’s target of raising oil production capacity to 3.5 million b/d by 2025 and ultimately to 4 million b/d remained, supported by the “lowest-cost and the lowest-carbon emissions oil in the world.”