State-run Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has discovered large commercial volumes of hydrocarbons at the Al-Jlaiaa offshore field, and expects more discoveries in the area.

The estimated reserves within the 74 sq km area include 800 million medium-density barrels of oil and 600 billion standard cubic feet of associated gas, the state-owned Kuwait News Agency reported.

The news follows the discovery in Al-Nokhatha field in July 2024, which has an estimated oil reserves of 3.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

KOC is undertaking an extensive exploratory survey project covering an area of more than 6,000 sq km to find new hydrocarbon reserves.

Kuwait, Opec’s fifth-largest producer, has a production capacity of 2.48 million barrels per day (bpd). It intends to boost capacity to four million bpd by 2035.

Last week, Khaled Al Sabah, managing director at the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and CEO of Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, said the country is planning to expand its oil production capacity by up to 40 percent, despite a bearish outlook for global demand and years of stagnant growth.

The Gulf state’s economy narrowed by about 4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2024 due to Opec‘s oil production cuts and under-performance in parts of the non-oil sector.

The economy is expected to rebound through 2025, Kuwait Statistical Bureau has said.