KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait has boosted its oil production capacity to around 3.13 million barrels per day on its way to achieve its target of four million bpd by 2020, an oil executive said in remarks published Tuesday.

"Through a number of upgrade projects, we have been able to raise Kuwait Oil Company's output capacity to 2.85 million bpd," KOC chairman Sami al-Rasheed told Al-Rai newspaper.

"If we add Kuwait's share from the divided zone (with Saudi Arabia) of 270,000 to 280,000 bpd, Kuwait's current total production capacity," will be around 3.13 million bpd, Rasheed said.

More than half of the capacity comes from the Great Burgan, the world's second largest oilfield after Saudi Ghawar, whose output capabilities have been raised from 1.5 million to 1.7 million bpd, Rasheed said.

The official also said KOC, the state-owned firm responsible for crude oil exploration and production which marks its 75th anniversary on Tuesday, plans to raise its own production capacity above three million bpd in 2010.

Rasheed said the Gulf state plans to seek the assistance of major foreign oil companies to develop difficult reservoirs and to boost its production of free natural gas discovered in 2006.

The official did not give spending figures on oil projects, but Kuwait's Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah al-Sabah said last week the emirate plans to spend 87 billion dollars on oil projects until 2030.

Kuwait says it sits on 10 percent of proven global oil reserves and currently pumps around 2.2 million bpd.