Foreign oil companies in the running to develop Kuwait's northern oilfields will be allowed access to specialised oil data from February 5, a top Kuwaiti oil executive said Friday.
"We will open the data rooms on February 5 for nine operator and 15 non-operator foreign oil firms who have been sent the Initial Protocol Process (IPP)," Kuwait Petroleum Corp.'s managing director, Nader Sultan, told journalists.
The data will be accessible only after the companies sign "confidentiality papers" that would restrict the use of the technical computerised data necessary to plan for the seven-billion-dollar project, Sultan said.
The state-owned KPC sent an IPP on January 3 to the prequalified international oil companies (IOCs) despite some opposition from parliament.
Although no official announcement has named the IOCs, it is widely believed that KPC has prequalified BP Amocco, ExxonMobil, ENI, TotalFinaElf, Chevron, Texaco, Conoco, Phillips and Shell as operators for the project.
"We are expecting a full response to the IPPs. After signing the confidentiality papers, they can take the data, study it and then present an idea of a development plan," he said.
That plan should include information about expected production, costs and other details, Sultan said, adding there was no timeframe for the process.
Legislation on the so-called Kuwait Project rules out any foreign ownership of the emirate's natural resources.
Kuwait, whose OPEC quota from February 1 will be 2.021 million barrels per day (bpd), aims to double production capacity of its northern oilfields to 900,000 bpd by 2005, and insists that this can only be achieved through foreign assistance.
Foreign oil firms in Kuwait, which holds around 10 percent of global oil reserves, have previously been restricted to technical service agreements.—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
