KUWAIT (Reuters) -- Kuwait has reduced its output plan for heavy oil from northern fields after recent gas and light crude discoveries, an oil official said in published remarks.

The world’s seventh largest oil exporter plans to produce 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of heavy oil by 2020, Hosnia Hashim, deputy managing director in charge of North Kuwait for state-owned Kuwait Oil Company, told the company’s official magazine.
That was down from a previous target of 700,000 bpd, stated when Kuwait signed a preliminary deal in October 2007 with Exxon Mobil Corp to boost heavy oil output from the northern fields.
‘The light crude produced from the processing of natural gas will be incorporated in the new strategy, thereby reducing the amount of crude required from heavy oil,’ Hashim told the magazine.
Kuwait said in June it would pump 50,000 bpd of light crude and condensate as new gas production started at northern fields.
Kuwait announced in March 2006 it had found an estimated 35 trillion cubic feet of non-associated gas and large amounts of condensates in the north.
Raising heavy crude capacity is part of Kuwait’s plan to increase its output potential to 4 million bpd by 2020 from around 2.45 million bpd in December.
‘KOC is in a position to meet its targets set by the 2020 strategy’, Hashim said.
The Exxon deal has yet to be finalised, despite initial plans to sign it by July 2008. Hashim did not say if the final deal with Exxon was concluded. She was unavailable for comment on Thursday.
Kuwait plans to scale up its northern field heavy oil output from 50,000 bpd in 2011 to 120,000 in 2015, before hitting 450,000 bpd in 2020, Hashim said.
Political turmoil in the country has led to concern that new oil contract negotiations would be prolonged or delayed.