KUWAIT: Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) will invest approximately $90 billion over the next five years in its oil and gas businesses and growth strategy, a company offical said on Tuesday. Hashin Al-Rifai, KPC's planning manager, told reporters the investments were part of a longer-term program that envisions $340 billion in spending to 2030. “On the oil sector capital program, we are well on track and poised to spend around $90 billion in the coming five years...that is going to mushroom to $340 billion over the 2030 plan period,” he said. Kuwait said last year it would invest around 3 billion dinars ($10.4 billion) in upstream developments by 2015 to expand oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) from 3 million bpd by 2020 and sustain the higher level for 10 years. Kuwait is also planning major investments in downstream operations, including the Al-Zour oil refinery, which would be the fourth in the country. Al-Zour, which was expected to start up in 2016, is currently stalled and may face further delays while it awaits the approval of the country's Supreme Petroleum Council, Rifai told reporters. The OPEC member has said it plans to increase its refining capacity to 1.4 million bpd up from 936,000 bpd.
