Upstream operator Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec) has doubled its holdings in Norwegian offshore assets after acquiring a 15 per cent interest in the Gina Krog oil field from French energy giant Total.

The Gulf firm’s wholly-owned local subsidiary Kufpec Norway acquired the stake for $317m effective from 1 January 2017. The deal between Total and Kufpec builds on a previous agreement between both parties regarding their North Sea assets, which included a 15 per cent interest in Gina Krog. The overall value of both deals exceeds $600m, Total said in a statement.

Kufpec’s overseas acquisitions form part of its target to increase domestic and foreign crude production capacity to four million barrels a day by 2020. In February, it acquired nearly $1.2bn worth of foreign upstream assets in Thailand and Norway increasing its overseas reserves up to 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe).

Its latest Norwegian acquisition would add approximately 34 million boe and about 9,000 boe a day (boe/d) of production from Gina Krog, which is operated by Oslo-headquartered Statoil.

Gina Krog’s addition to Kufpec’s portfolio will raise its Norwegian output close to 25,000 boe/d.

“Kufpec continues to execute its strategy to grow in profitable projects in Norway, and this transaction builds on our 2016 acquisition of Greater Sleipner Area assets from Total, which included a 15 per cent interest in Gina Krog,” said Kufpec chief executive Shaikh Nawaf Saud Nasir al-Sabah in a statement.

The transaction is subject to approval by the Norwegian government.

Kufpec’s current interests in Norway’s Greater Sleipner area are as follows:

• 15 per cent interest in the Gina Krog development (where oil extraction is expected in the second quarter of 2017)
• 9.4 per cent interest in the Sleipner Vest producing field
• 10 per cent interest in the Sleipner Øst producing field
• 6.2 per cent interest in the Utgard development
• 21.8 per cent interest in the Eirin discovery