Local firm awarded trunk line project for Kuwait Oil Co.

Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC), the upstream arm of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), is advancing its long-term strategic plan to maximise recovery and output from the northern oilfields, a region critical to the country’s energy future.

This week, local contractor Mechanical Engineering & Contracting Co. (MECC) secured a pivotal Manifolds and Group Trunk Lines (MGT) project, valued at KWD34.7mn ($113mn).

The contract, awarded after MECC emerged as the lowest bidder, will see the construction of manifold pipelines designed to transport liquids from wells to the recently completed Gathering Centres (GCs) 29, 30, and 31. These GCs were originally contracted in 2014 to international majors – Petrofac (GC 29), Larsen & Toubro (GC 30), and Dodsal (GC 31) – each designed to handle 100,000 barrels per day of oil, signifying the scale of the necessary tie-in infrastructure now being installed.

The award of the MGT contract underpins KPC’s overarching national strategy to raise total oil production capacity to 4mn bpd by 2035. This ambition is supported by a colossal investment programme, with KPC’s Managing Director for Planning and Finance, Bader Al Attar, confirming planned capital expenditure of up to $410bn by 2040.

The focus on the Northern Fields is particularly acute. The cluster, which includes the Raudhatain, Sabriyah, and Bahra fields, held a production capacity nearing 700,000 bpd in 2022. Wood Mackenzie estimates the remaining reserves in this region at 13.2bn barrels of oil.

To sustain this output, KOC is concurrently progressing with enhanced oil recovery projects. Sources cited by Zawya Projects in May indicated that a crucial Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract for a water injection network serving the Sabriyah and Bahra (SA/BA) oilfields is nearing its award phase. This network is strategically designed to maintain critical reservoir pressure and maximise long-term crude extraction rates.

The contract designation for this ‘New NK Injection Network’ was anticipated in the third quarter of 2025, targeting project completion by the first quarter of 2028. This infrastructure is essential for the accelerated development of fields like Bahra, which KOC has earmarked to elevate production to 145,000 bpd by 2040.

KOC CEO Ahmed Jaber Al-Eidan has provided a near-term outlook, stating Kuwait’s maximum sustainable capacity (MSC) currently stands at 2.9mn bpd, with actual production averaging 2.55mn bpd in August 2024. Al-Eidan projects the MSC will climb to 3.2mn bpd by 2025 or 2026, demonstrating that the northern field investments are foundational to delivering the Kingdom’s targeted capacity increase.