Kuwait has invited five international oil companies (IOCs) to bid for an enhanced technical service agreement to develop the country’s Ratqa heavy oil field.

Britain’s BP, France’s Total, UK-incorporated Royal Dutch Shell and US energy companies ExxonMobil and Chevron have all been asked to put in offers Hashem Hashem, CEO of state-run Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) told Reuters on 2 October.

“We are trying to conclude this contract by the first or second quarter of next year,” he said.

The new contract is part of a wider push to ramp up production in the country to 4 million barrels a day (b/d) by 2020.

Hashem said letters would be sent to the five companies inviting them to bid on the deal.

Speaking to MEED last week, a spokesperson from BP said the company was yet to receive any invitation.

After signing the Ratqa contract, KOC is looking to sign deals with IOCs to develop some of its other large oil fields including the North Kuwait fields and the Burgan field, according to Hashem.

The project to develop the Ratqa field will involve constructing Kuwait’s biggest heavy oil reservoir and will see it produce 60,000 b/d by 2018-19 in the first phase.

This will then be ramped up to 120,000 b/d by 2025, according to Hashem.

ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP have all been involved in talks with Kuwait about signing technical service agreements in the past, with ExxonMobil signing a preliminary deal with KOC in 2007.

Despite extensive talks, political opposition to foreign firms taking a large role in oil production has delayed several oil and gas development projects.

Shell signed an $800m enhanced technical service agreement with KOC in February 2010 to develop the country’s Jurassic gas fields.

Since then, the five-year contract has been linked to corruption by its critics and a special parliamentary committee has been formed to probe the procedures that led to it being awarded.