Local United Precision Drilling Company (UPDC) has won four major contracts worth a total of more than $400m, for the supply of drilling four deep drilling rigs to state upstream operator, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).

KOC signed the contracts with UDPC on 4 November. Under the terms of the four contracts, UPDC will supply and operate rigs for onshore drilling operations over a period of five-years. The firm won a similar deal in February 2008, worth $84m to supply a single deep drilling rig for KOC.

Since the beginning of the year, KOC has signed a total of eight contracts, spending more than $600m on deep drilling and work over rigs, used to maintain oil reservoir pressure. At the end of October, KOC signed a $99m deal with local Burgan Company for Well Drilling Trading & Maintenance. The largest rig deal went to China’s Sinopec for the supply of workover rigs worth more than $245m in February (MEED 21:2:10).

Kuwait hopes to increase crude oil production to 4 million barrels a day (b/d) by 2020 from 2.5 million b/d currently. The increase comes at the same time as neighbouring Iraq seeks to rapidly raise its own production levels to as much as 12 million b/d by 2017, making the future availability of rigs a critical issue for national oil companies in the region.