State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) expects that oil will play a key role in the global energy mix until at least 2050 and estimates that energy demand will increase by 50 per cent over the period.Speaking at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London, Sheikh Nawaf al-Sabah, KPC’s deputy chairman and chief executive, said: “We anticipate between now and 2050 or so, energy demand will increase by about 50 per cent from where we are now. That is faster than the population rate increases between now and that time.“So, that means on a per capita basis, we as human beings will be using more energy over the next few decades.”Al-Sabah said that there is a gap between the potential output of announced global energy projects and the energy demand that the company has forecast.He said KPC believes that this gap will be filled by oil in the long term.The executive said he expects that over the long term, there will be significant demand for oil from Kuwait and other GCC countries, due to it being low-cost and relatively low-carbon.He said that his company is investing to build up oil production capacity and underlined the importance of maintaining spare production capacity to be able to effectively deal with supply shocks.Al-Sabah said: “It costs us billions of dollars to build up and maintain that supply position and keeping it idle is another cost – but the minute you have a black swan event that causes the price to go up ... the world looks to us to be able to bring that supply onto the market.”Kuwait is aiming to boost its upstream production capacity to 4 million barrels a day (b/d) of oil by 2035.Its current production capacity is almost 2.9 million b/d, Al-Sabah said.Kuwait is planning to invest $10bn a year over the next five years to take production up to a short-term target of 3.2 million b/d.“We will meet it well within that five-year range,” Al-Sabah said.Moving offshoreKuwait is preparing to drill its first offshore oil well as part of the effort to boost production.“We have huge offshore fields that we have not yet touched. We are drilling our very first offshore exploration well right now,” he said.Kuwait Oil Company's (KOC) first offshore exploratory and drilling operations for oil and gas are expected to be completed in 2026.If drilling is successful, new production could begin and potentially boost Kuwait's oil and gas output.As well as using new offshore resources, Kuwait is also looking at onshore exploration and enhanced oil recovery to bring on additional supply.“We will use gas and other methods to stimulate reservoir pressure and more production,” Al-Sabah said.Investing $410bnKuwait has had success stimulating increased production from the Bahra oil field, where the country’s first oil well was drilled.The well was previously abandoned for decades due to low pressure, but since the recent implementation of enhanced recovery techniques, the field’s production has risen from 5,000 b/d to its current level of about 50,000 b/d.“We have a clear line of sight to get it over 100,000 b/d,” Al-Sabah said.Kuwait is also looking at boosting heavy oil production to hit its target and is currently producing 60,000 b/d from heavy oil facilities, he said.To hit the target of 4 million b/d by 2035, Kuwait is planning to invest a total of $410bn.Of this, $300bn will be a conventional upstream investment and about $110bn will be spent on “the energy transition and to maintain the competitiveness of that barrel”, Al-Sabah said. (ICE KUWAIT)

Fonte notizia: Meed