Kuwait to spend $ 90 bn on oil over 5 years

KUWAIT CITY: OPEC member Kuwait plans to spend as much as $90 billion on oil projects inside and outside the country over the next five years, a top oil executive said on Monday. “About 90 billion dollars will be spent over the next five years to achieve our strategy,” said Hashim al-Refaai, managing director for planning with Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), the emirate’s national oil conglomerate.

More than a third of the amount is earmarked for two major projects to build a new refinery at a cost of $14 billion and upgrading two existing refineries for $16.3 billion, he said. The expenditure plan envisages raising the Gulf state’s output capacity to 3.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2015 from 3.1 million bpd currently, he told the 6th annual conference on Kuwait projects organised by MEED.

The ultimate goal of Kuwait’s long-term strategy is to raise its output capacity to four million bpd by 2020 and sustain that until 2030, Refaai, who is also chairman of Oil Development Company, said.

KPC transport subsidiary, Kuwait Oil Tanker Co. (KOTC) will account for 1.6 billion dollars to modernise the Kuwaiti oil fleet by ordering six new modern tankers by 2015, he said.