State upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has pre-qualified two western oil majors to bid for the consultancy services contract for its first ever enhanced oil recovery (EOR) programme.

KOC has invited the UK’s BP and the UK/Dutch Shell to submit bids before 18 December to undertake consulting services in the Western Kuwait area.

The project, which involves injecting water and the carbon dioxide (CO2) - in two phases - into the Minagish Middle Oolite formations in the west of the country will be the first ever pilot set to meet the country’s EOR targets by 2030.

The firms will be required to prepare subsurface models for gas injection as well as develop a full field development for CO2, apart from identifying potential sources of the gas, which will be pumped into the reservoirs.

The contract is for fifty-one months, including a mobilisation period to develop the pilot into a full field development.

The Minagish Oolite reservoir started production in the sixties but suffered rapid pressure decline from the start. The field underwent gas injections through the sixties and eighties and water injection since 2003 to compensate for the natural decline.

Kuwait’s large western fields, which include Umm Gudair, Dharif, Abduliyah and Minagish have been producing continuously for 40 years but the contribution to the overall output is rather small.

Kuwait’s production level stood at 2.7 million barrels a day (b/d) as of August 2017. The Opec producer aims to increase its production to four million b/d by 2020.