Reuters cited Abu Dhabi National Oil (Adnoc) exploration and production directorate offshore division manager Qasem al-Kayoumi as saying that the investment is a part of UAE’s goal to increase its crude oil output potential to 3.5 million barrels per day by 2017-18.
Currently, UAE’s production is around 2.8 million bpd.
Al-Kayoumi said: "We want to build ?capacity from production and from number of wells and infrastructure. Our current plan as Adnoc (is to reach) 3.5 million bpd and to sustain it."
Adnoc is planning to invest $2.5bn to drill 160 offshore wells annually in the next few years, al-Kayoumi said during the Middle East Petroleum and Gas conference in Abu Dhabi.
"It is a considerable increase – the number of rigs has built up considerably in offshore, it could be more than a 50 percent increase."
?al-Kayoumi expects the crude oil production capacity of the ADMA-OPCO and ZADCO fields to raise around 1.6 million barrels per day in 2017-2018 from current production capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day.
