Bloomberg - Kuwait Announces 50%+ Cut In Heavy Oil Pumping Target For 2020

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Kuwait plans to pump about 170,000 barrels a day of heavy crude oil by 2020, down from an earlier target of 450,000 barrels a day, Kuwait Oil Co. Chairman Sami al-Rushaid said. “The heavy oil target is now about 60,000 by 2015/16. This is the first milestone,” al-Rushaid said in a phone interview today. “Our target is about 170,000 barrels per day by 2020.”

The Persian Gulf nation’s heavy oil is mostly concentrated in the north of the country where production would be focused, al-Rushaid said. Kuwait has a current production capacity of 760,000 barrels a day at its northern oil fields and is targeting a capacity of 1 million barrels by 2020, he said.

The fifth-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and holder of about 8 percent of the world’s crude reserves, Kuwait is targeting a production capacity of 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2020.

“The heavy oil is the gap filler to reach the 4 million capacity target,” al-Rushaid said. The country’s current production capacity is 3.3 million barrels, he said, adding that Kuwait complies with its OPEC quota, which is 2.2 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg data.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/kuwait-reduces-its-2020-heavy-oil-production-target-by-more-than-half.html