SPC clarifies Conoco-Phillips role

26 September 2003
The Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) on 22 September resolved the issue of the operator in group 3 of the Project Kuwait bidders. The status of ConocoPhillips has been revised to that of non-operator. Conoco and Phillips separately joined the ExxonMobil Corporation-led consortium as non-operators before their 2002 merger, when the unified entity gained operator status. Each bidding consortia is allowed only one operator and one back-up operator. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group is back-up operator in group 3. The other member of the consortium is Denmark's Maersk Oil & Gas.

Three consortia of international oil companies are scheduled to submit development plans on Project Kuwait, which calls for a doubling of output from the five northern oilfields to about 1 million barrels a day, by 27 October. ChevronTexaco of the US is leading a consortium with France's Total, PetroCanada, Russia's Sibneftand China's Sinopec. BPof the UK is leading a group with the US' Occidental Petroleum Company, India's Oil & Natural Gas Corporationand Indian Oil Corporation. The next stage will be the issue of request for proposals (RFPs) by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (MEED 5:9:03).

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