Kuwait Oil Company - KOC has concluded an agreement worth of $152 million with Sun Drilling LLP, said people close to the matter. Under the agreement, Sun Drilling will supply KOC with drilling rigs in the frame work of KOC's future drilling program. Sources that were cited by Arabic daily Alanba newspaper, noted that the agreement duration is five years and KOC is expected to receive 1500HP drilling rigs.

The new contract comes in the frame work of group of contracts which KOC has signed recently with different local and global companies to supply it with 38 drilling rigs within five years, said sources. The drilling agreements are considered one of the major schemes that the Gulf-rich state undertakes in order to enhance production plans and to implement national mega drilling projects to boost oil output to 4 mln bpd by 2020, added the source.

Currently Kuwait owns 35 drilling rigs, noted the source. Meanwhile, Kuwait plans to invest around $40 billion to boost its oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020, said earlier news reports

The OPEC state has a crude oil production capacity of around 3.4 million bpd and its production is in the range of 3 million bpd.