Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have agreed to boost oil-output capacity from their shared offshore fields to 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2008, up 50,000 million bpd from the current level, the chairman of the company managing Kuwait's side of operations said.

"The new production strategy which we agreed upon with the Saudi side is to boost joint production capacity in the offshore fields to 350,000 bpd by 2008, mainly from the Khafji and Hout fields, and some smaller fields," KGOC chairman Abdul Hadi Al-Awad said.
The strategy, part of a five-year plan from 2005 to 2009, also includes extensive proposals to develop the Al-Dorra field once its boundary is set by a maritime border agreement being negotiated by Kuwait and Iran.
Al-Awad became KGOC chairman in August with the restructuring of the parent company, Kuwait Petroleum Corp.
"The five-year plan includes a strategy to renovate most of the offshore facilities and some onshore ones linked to offshore operations," Al-Awad said. "We have set aside some $1.8 billion to spend for that."
Included in the strategy are plans for additional 2-D and 3-D seismic surveys for all offshore fields, Al-Awad said.
The new exploration programme also calls for joint operations at Khafji to drill the first-ever deep exploration wells there to between 20,000 and 25,000 feet, Al-Awad said, noting that more crude, not gas, would be sought at those depths.