The Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec), the overseas upstream arm of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), has signed a $1.1bn finance deal with a number of banks to expand its oil and gas operations.

Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Mizuho, First Abu Dhabi Bank, France’s Societe Generale, and Canada-based Scotiabank are the banks involved in the transaction, according to a company statement.

MEED had earlier reported that Kufpec was seeking a five-year loan of over $1bn.

The new financing includes a two-year grace period and is in addition to $3.5bn that Kufpec has borrowed from the banks since 2013. The company will finish repaying that sum next year, Kufpec CEO Nawaf al-Sabah has been quoted as saying.

Al-Sabah also said the company was currently studying new future oil and gas acquisitions abroad, without providing more details.

He said Kufpec aims to boost its output from the 119,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boe/d) it presently produces to 150,000 (boe/d) by 2020, a level it will maintain until 2040.

Kufpec is currently producing 8,000 boe/d in Canada and plans to gradually increase output there by drilling a total of 2,000 wells, he continued. The company is also producing 38,000 boe/d in Australia

The CEO added that the company’s total assets are currently about $7bn.

He also said that Kufpec’s reserves stand at 494 million boe, with the Canadian project potentially adding another 28 million boe to that.

Kufpec has drilled 120 wells to produce shale gas and condensates from fields in Canada’s Alberta province, with the firm having the option to sell the gas produced in the local market, as well as ship some of it to Kuwait as per demand at home.