Page 12 - MEOG Week 06 2021

MEOG TENDERS MEOG

KOC announces winners of rig tender

KUWAIT STATE-OWNED Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC) last than 70 square km. The field flowed at an initial
week awarded 350mn dinar ($1.15bn) worth of rate of 1,452 barrels per day (bpd) of light oil.
deals for the lease of 31 drilling towers follow- Meanwhile, the al-Qashaniyah field was dis-
ing a tender that had been postponed during Q3 covered in the north near the major Rawdatain
2019. and al-Sabriya fields. Al-Qashaniyah flowed at a
The largest contract was signed with China rate of 1,819 bpd of light 49-degree API oil and
National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), which will 2.78mn cubic feet (79,000 cubic metres) per day
supply and install 10 of the units. Meanwhile, of associated gas.
local companies Kuwait Drilling and Burgan Kuwait has been attempting to maintain
Drilling will each supply four rigs, while the highly ambitious capacity targets of 4mn bpd by
remaining units will be provided by seven for- the end of this year and 4.75mn bpd by the end of
eign firms, including Oman’s MB Holding, 2040, up from the current 3.1-3.2mn bpd. In late
UK-based Mariott Drilling and several Egyp- 2019, the 2020 target was reported to have been
tian companies, thought to include SinoTharwa pushed back to 2040.
Drilling, a joint venture between Tharwa Petro-
leum and China’s Sinopec. Digital transformation
The contracts are believed to have been Also last week, KOC announced that it had
signed for a period of five years, though their awarded a contract to US services firm Hallibur-
total value is around a third more than was antic- ton to collaborate on expanding digital solutions
ipated by company sources who first disclosed for the company’s North Kuwait asset.
the tender when speaking to the Arabic language The deal is based around the design and
daily Al-Anba in November. operation of digital twins of the field and a sub-
While no details have officially been provided scription to Halliburton’s DecisionSpace 365
by KOC, the company launched a tender in cloud-based IT service, which will permit work
August for the acquisition of 24 HP750, HP550 processes to be automated.
and HP1000 drilling rigs. In addition to virtual reservoir optimisation,
The acquisition is part of KOC’s efforts to this is expected to help KOC improve schedul-
expand E&P activities in line with its upstream ing by implementing predictive maintenance
strategy for 2040 and developing newly discov- technologies.
ered reservoirs. More strategically, US-based Strategy&, for-
A company source was quoted by Al-Anba merly Booz & Co., is carrying out a study for
as saying that KOC intends to “drill around 400 KOC’s parent firm Kuwait Petroleum Corp.
new crude oil wells” once the new towers are (KPC) for the restructuring of the sector and
delivered. The new units will take the total in the reducing KPC’s affiliates from eight to four.
country to 150, comprised of 80 for drilling and The study began last year as KPC was forced
70 for well repair. to reassess its capital programme, and reduce
In January, Kuwaiti Oil Minister, and now capital spending in its 2020-2025 five-year plan.
Acting Oil Minister following the resignation Al-Anba quoted a company source as saying
of the cabinet, Mohammed al-Fares announced that the Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) and
that KOC had discovered two new oilfield fields KPC had approved plans to restructure the oil
as well as an extension of the northern part of the sector, “including cutting the number of oper-
country’s key oil asset – Great Burgan. ating companies through mergers and reducing
The Homah oilfield was discovered in industry activities to three main sectors com-
north-western Kuwait covering an area of more prising production, exploration and refining.”™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 06 10•February•2021