Kuwait’s Petroleum Unit Inks New Exploration Deals In South China Sea

Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corp, announced that it has signed three production sharing contracts to explore oil blocks in South China Sea.

The three new exploration blocks are adjacent to Yacheng pipeline, which supplies natural gas to Hong Kong from the Yacheng offshore gas field.

In a statement to official newswire Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), the state-owned firm said that it will take a 30 per cent working interest in the new exploration blocks in the event of a commercial discovery.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the operator of the blocks, will hold the remaining working capital.

Kufpec’s new exploration activities in China are also part of its strategy to expand its oil and gas production worldwide, the statement said.

Kufpec, which is responsible for the exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas outside Kuwait, said it was aiming to raise its output to 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with reserves of 650 million barrels of oil equivalent by 2020.

It is active in 15 countries, with 63 projects in the international upstream sector, it added.

The company also signed a $1 billion loan in November to fund its international expansion plans.

Recently, Kufpec said that it will buy a 30 per cent stake in US firm Chevron Corp’s Canadian oil shale holdings for $1.5 billion.

In January this year, the oil firm also upped its stake to eight per cent in Australia’s Wheatstone-Iago fields joint venture and purchased a 6.4 per cent stake in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant from Royal Dutch Shell.