Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), an oil company headquartered in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, is a subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, a government-owned holding company. Kuwait was the world's 10th largest petroleum and other liquids producer in 2010.[1] The company produced a total of 1.7 million barrels per day.
Kuwait's oil reserves have been nationalized since 1975,[2] with the KOC, established in 1979,[3] holding sole rights to the exploration and production of oil and gas within Kuwait.[4] KOC operations and activities of exploring and producing oil make up nearly 90% of the national budget, which is still highly dependent on oil in its resources.
Kuwait's oil reserves are estimated at 100 billion barrels.[5]
History
The Kuwait Oil Company Limited was established in 1934, through an alliance between the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the American Gulf Oil Company,[6] and is currently a subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC).
The oil concession rights were awarded to the company on 23 December 1934, and it started drilling operations in 1936.
The first oil discovery was made in 1938 in the Burgan field,[7] which is still considered the second largest oil field in the world. Discoveries then followed in Magwa in 1951, Ahmadi in 1952, Raudhatain in 1955, Sabriya in 1957, and Minagish in 1959.
The commercial export of crude oil began in 1946.[8]
In August 1990, Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered the occupation of Kuwait. But as Iraqi forces pulled out from Kuwait in 1991, they set set fire to over 700 Kuwaiti oil wells. The smoke plume above them initially stretched for 800 miles. Nearly 300 oil lakes formed on the surface of the desert, polluting the soil. An international coalition of firefighters battled the fires for months until the last well was finally capped on 6 November 1991.[9]
In 2005, KOC lowered its production plateau estimates for the Greater Burgan area from 2 million barrels per day to 1.7 million barrels per day over a 20-30 year period, citing field exhaustion.[10]
In 2023, KOC signed contracts worth $1.73 billion expanding the KERP which aims at repairing the soil of oilfields destroyed during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.[11]
Operations
KOC produces three grades of crude oil: Kuwaiti Export Crude, light crude and heavy crude.
On October 9th, 2023, Kuwait's oil minister announced the country would prepare the infrastructure for the Durra gas field, in an attempt to boost fossil fuel production. The strategy aims to raise overall oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day by 2035.[5] On May 6th, 2024, in an effort to diversify its energy strategy and enhance its renewable energy portfolio, Kuwait announced plans for a large-scale solar energy project.[12] The project is spearheaded by the Ministry of Electricity and Water in collaboration with the KOC. The two entities have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlining the framework for a global operator model whereby a suitable entity will be selected via a meticulously prepared tender process to execute the project. As per the outlined agreement, the chosen company will procure the energy through a contractual agreement spanning 25 to 30 years. The ambitious initiative aims to generate 1 gigawatt of electricity using solar power.
^Naqi, Mohammad; Alsalem, Ohood; Qabazard, Suad; Abdullah, Fowzia (2023), Abd el-aal, Abd el-aziz Khairy; Al-Awadhi, Jasem Mohammed; Al-Dousari, Ali (eds.), "Petroleum Geology of Kuwait", The Geology of Kuwait, Regional Geology Reviews, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 117–144, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16727-0_6, ISBN978-3-031-16727-0
