KUWAIT • State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said a treaty with Saudi Arabia over a disputed gas field should be implemented quickly as the Gulf state struggles to meet demand for gas.

The off-shore Dorra field has been a bone of contention between Tehran and Kuwait since the 1960s. It lies on the continental shelf between Opec producers Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Tehran has in the past objected to reports that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were discussing joint development of Dorra.

KPC officials recommended in a presentation, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, that “the implementation of treaties with Saudi Arabia should be expedited to accelerate the development of the Durra field”.

The recommendation was one of several KPC made to help meet rising demand for gas to be used in power generation as an economic boom sparked by record oil revenues strains capacity.

KPC also recommended that development of gas fields not associated with crude in northern Kuwait be undertaken as quickly as possible.

To reach this goal, KPC’s exploration and production arm Kuwait Oil Company should be allowed to have direct dealings with international contractors to help expedite the project, KPC said in the document.

It called for construction of a gas and fuel grid in the small desert country.

KPC, which oversees the country’s energy sector, said the state should ensure that a planned 615,000 barrels per day (bpd) Al Zour refinery would start production on time in December 2011 “to avoid having to rely on crude oil as fuel (for power stations) for environmental and economic considerations”.

It said the refinery would produce 225,000 bpd of low-sulphur heavy fuel oil, or the equivalent of 1,323 billion btu daily.

Other recommendations to ease the gas supply shortage included imports of LNG, gas imports via pipeline and producing synthetic gas from heavy oil.

The presentation also included the following table detailing envisaged future production volumes.

Meanwhile, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) said yesterday that the state ming reach its goal to boost oil output capacity to four million barrels per day early after some new discoveries but the target date remained 2020.

Existing oil production capacity in the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter is around 2.8 million bpd. The Oopec member produced around 2.4 million bpd in May, according to a Reuters survey.

“The oil production strategy is still four million barrels per day by year 2020. All our plans are based on that,” KOC Chairman Farouk Al Zanki said. “These (discoveries) open a new horizon....Maybe now we have more potential from the deep (fields) to achieve the four million bpd target earlier.”