State-owned Kuwait Oil Co. is looking to enlist the knowledge and expertise of Calgary-based firms to help in the development of its heavy oil reserves with a goal of producing a total of 900,000 barrels per day by 2020, a senior company official told the Herald on Wednesday.

Output from the proposed development will be on par with Saudi Aramco's Manifa offshore project -- billed as the single-largest heavy oil venture in the world.

"We are on the learning curve and are in Calgary to get a better grip of the heavy oil industry," said Ali al-Shammari, the deputy managing director for finance. "Unless we seek the experience of the industry here, we will not be able to reach our target."

On offer for oil-service firms are term-contracts to assist KOC in the application of new drilling technologies, the provision of rigs, geosciences and sub-surface know-how, compressors and submersible pumps and trained and experienced manpower.

"We will also be sending our geologists to be attached to companies here. This will give them an opportunity to learn on a first-hand basis," Al-Shammari added. "Our London, England office will be monitoring the opportunities in Canada."

A bigger prize is also probably on offer for international oil companies.

"We will need their (IOCs) help in developing the reservoirs and may also consider the options of signing enhanced technical services agreements," he added. "KOC is in a challenging environment now and most of our capital expenditure over the coming few years will be in the upstream sector."

Pauline Dingwell, an analyst at the Canada and Alaska desk of Edinburgh-based Wood Mackenzie, said KOC's scouting mission is a "recognition" of Alberta's expertise in handling heavy oil and oilsands projects.

"There is lots happening in the unconventional oil sector, as technology is making extraction more economical and environmentally competitive," she said. "EOR (enhanced oil recovery), polymer injection and water and steam flooding are used extensively in Alberta."

Al-Shammari said that of the total projected heavy oil capacity addition, 78 per cent or nearly 700,000 bpd will be produced from the Lower Fares formation in the north of the country. The remaining volumes will be sourced from the Umm Gudair and Burgan fields in the west and southwest and from KOC's share of production from the Neutral Zone divided equally between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

"The heavy oil has an API (American Petroleum Institute) level of 12-to-17 and is at depths of 700 feet. It is early stages, but we may drill a total of 20,000 wells and also install multiple-sections of in-field pipelines," he said.

The KOC official added that a pilot project is due to be tendered soon, with a capacity to produce 50,000 bpd by 2011. Production will be ramped up in stages to 250,000 bpd by 2015 and 900,000 by 2020.

"We have expertise in under-balanced drilling, well testing, production testing and drilling optimization," said Aaron Nemish of Calgary-based Sonic Energy Services. "We see the Kuwait project as a major opportunity. We are soon breaking into the Middle East market with Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates) as our first port of call."