Kuwait Oil Company will spend $3.9 billion by 2030 on exploration, says deputy CEO

Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), a senior executive of the company, said in an interview that it plans to spend $3.92 billion on its exploration drilling programme through 2030.

Khaled Al-Mulla, the company's Deputy CEO of Exploration and Drilling, explained that the spending was part of the 9.8-billion-dinar (the largest budget ever) allocated to drilling and maintaining up to 6,193 oil wells before the end of the decade.

The OPEC producer has announced a spending plan to increase its oil production to 4 million barrels a day by 2035 and to maintain that level until 2040, from 3.2 millions bpd. Kuwait Oil Company will account for 3,65 million barrels per day of this capacity. The rest is coming from Saudi Arabia's shared zone.

Al-Mulla said modern technology, including AI tools made deeper, less accessible reservoirs economically viable. The Mutriba oil field in Kuwait's northwest began producing in 2025, many years after it was discovered.

Al-Mulla stated that KOC had achieved 100% success in its first phase of offshore exploration, which included drilling six wells. The second phase will include 18 additional wells and the company hopes to reach an offshore production capacity of 150,000 bpd in 2035. Al-Mulla stated that this figure was "likely" to increase after recent promising discoveries offshore.

(source: Reuters)