The plans will be based on terms of reference drawn up by Kuwait Oil Company. In mid-August the three groups submitted their comments on proposed changes to the operating service agreement (OSA), which calls for an IOC to assist in more than doubling the oil output from the five northern oil fields to about 1 million barrels a day. The next stage in the project implementation will be the issue of request for proposals (RFPs) by KPC.

The three bidding groups of IOCs are:

Group 1- ChevronTexaco Corporationof the US(operator - 50 per cent stake), Total of France (20 per cent), Petro-Canada (10 per cent), Russia's Sibneft (10 per cent) and Sinopec of China (10 per cent);

Group 2 - BP of the UK (operator - 65 per cent), Occidental Petroleum Company of the US (25 per cent), Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, India, (10 per cent) and Indian Oil Corporation (10 per cent);

Group 3 - ExxonMobil Corporation of the US (operator - 37.5 per cent), Royal Dutch Shell (32.5 per cent), ConocoPhillips of the US (20 per cent) and Maersk Oil & Gas of Denmark (10 per cent).