Middle East Economic Survey
VOL. XLIX
No 20
14-May-2007
KUWAIT
Seepage From Khafji Field Averaging 32,000 B/D, Says Shaikh ΄Ali
Seepage from al-Khafji oilfield in the offshore Partitioned (Neutral) Zone (PZ) to the Safaniya field in Saudi Arabia is averaging 32,000 b/d, Kuwait’s Oil Minister Shaikh ΄Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah said in reply to a parliamentary question, published in the Kuwaiti press on 4 May. Al-Khafji is the northern extension of the Safaniya field. Shaikh ΄Ali said 10,000 b/d was escaping from the First Bahrain Sandstone Reservoir and 22,000 b/d from the Second Bahrain Sandstone Reservoir. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia share equally the output from the PZ, both onshore and offshore. The offshore is operated by al-Khafji Joint Operations (KJO), a joint venture between Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC) and Saudi Aramco Gulf Operations Company (AGOC). KGOC is in charge of exploration and production. Work on al-Khafji Field Development Plan is under way and is scheduled for completion in 2009. A number of onshore and offshore contracts for this were signed in August last year (MEES, 28 August 2006). The Phase 1 development plan is aimed at maintaining current output there at 300,000 b/d, rather than expanding it – as Kuwait had originally hoped would be the case. This is because of the expected increase in the water cut.
In his parliamentary reply, Shaikh ΄Ali said AGOC had communicated to KJO its desire for a study to be carried out into the possibility of raising al-Khafji production above the current ceiling. AGOC had also liaised with Kuwait’s Ministry of Oil over the matter. The Kuwaiti minister went on to say that a joint committee overseeing offshore operations in the PZ had agreed earlier this year to gather all the necessary information and to renew the computer simulation model for the two Bahrain Sandstone Reservoirs to see if the production ceiling at al-Khafji might be raised.
