Kuwait oil giant planning $80bn investment

EXPANSION BID: Kuwait Petroleum Corp is planning an $80bn investment programme over the next five years. (Getty Images)

A top official at the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation announced on Wednesday that the company would invest about $80 billion over the next five years to increase production and expand refinery capacity.

On the oil price which was at $46 a barrel, Sheikh Nawaf Saud Nasir Al Sabah, deputy managing director and general counsel, thought it was now "not far away form the comfortable zone".

The official, who was speaking at the sidelines of the Wharton Global Forum in Dubai, admitted the global economic crisis had forced the company to rethink some of its timings to achieve its goals.

But he added: "Our essential elements remain unchanged. We are planning to deploy our considerable resources to position ourselves to capture market opportunities on the way down and on the inevitable way up."

He revealed that about $80bn would be spent in a five-year plan which would include increasing production capacity to three million barrels per day (bpd) next year with an extra 500,000 bpd over five years.

He said the company also intended to expand its refinery capacity in Kuwait to 1.4m bpd through building a new refinery and upgrading existing ones.

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