OPEC member Kuwait will need help from oil majors to reach its oil and gas production targets, the deputy prime minister for economic affairs said on Thursday.
"Not only for the oil (sector) but also for the gas," Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, also a former oil minister, said when asked about a possible role for international oil companies in the country's state-run energy sector.
"Now we have the gas production (issue) for which we will mainly need international companies," he told reporters without being more specific about the envisaged role of foreign firms.
Kuwait's output of gas from fields not associated with oil stands at around 150 million cubic feet per day and should reach 1 billion cfd by 2015, a top oil official said last month.
Sheikh Ahmad said the world's fourth-largest oil exporter also hopes to boost its gas production to reach about 1.5 billion to 2 billion cubic feet per day by 2015.
The Gulf Arab state aims to increase investments in the oil sector over the next five years to boost output capacity beyond the current 3.1 million barrel per day, Sheikh Ahmad said.
"There will be big investments in the oil sector because we have to increase our production capacity (to) more than 3.1 million bpd in the next five years," he said of a government five-year plan.
Kuwait has a long-term output capacity target of 4 million bpd by 2020.
He declined to give details of how much Kuwait plans to invest over the coming five years, according to a plan that will be presented to parliament for approval by October.
Kuwait wants to develop more gas fields that were not associated with oil production. In 2008, it started to tap gas fields in the north to help bridge a shortage in supply for power generation plants.