Know-how transfer for Kuwait and beyond

Kuwait

Jennifer Miskimins, 2026 president of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), talks to The Energy Year about the value of international expertise in Kuwait's offshore and unconventional hydrocarbons developments and the importance of long-term reservoir management. SPE is an international member organisation that fosters collaboration among oil and gas professionals.

How can SPE help transfer offshore and emerging energy knowledge to markets such as Kuwait, where these sectors are developing?
It is in such situations that SPE’s strength in technology transfer can become essential. Offshore exploration is new in Kuwait, but the technical knowledge exists in regions such as the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. SPE helps accelerate access to that knowledge through our global paper database, OnePetro, and our international conferences.
SPE members in Kuwait can gain insights from what has been done offshore elsewhere, and the same applies to areas such as unconventional resources. Knowledge from the Eagle Ford Shale in the USA, for instance, can inform new projects here. SPE gives companies and engineers in early-phase sectors such as CCUS or hydrogen the ability to bypass years of trial and error by learning from others.

What’s your assessment of Kuwait’s unconventional fields and the country’s readiness to tackle those challenges?
The main challenge in unconventional reservoirs in Kuwait is depth. With increased depth comes higher stress, which complicates procedures such as hydraulic fracturing. There are also structural complexities underground. These issues are not unique. They show up in other parts of the world.
For example, the Vaca Muerta formation in Argentina shares similar stress and structural depth characteristics as does the Haynesville Shale in the United States. Geology is independent of borders; it is the product of ancient depositional environments. The key is understanding those formations globally and using that to inform local development strategies.

Some of the region’s largest fields, such as Ghawar or Burgan, face challenges with production stability. What is your perspective on managing that?
Field management at that scale requires careful pressure management. Stabilising production isn’t just about flow – it is about understanding reservoir behaviour and how different zones interact. If you increase production in one area, it might negatively affect another, so smart reservoir engineering is preferable to brute force.
Kuwait benefits from having KPC overseeing the whole system. In some cases, especially in cross-border fields, conflicting interests can hamper co-ordination. Here, with a unified operator, pressure management and strategic development become much more feasible, especially if supplemented with international experience or expertise.

What role do you see IOCs playing in supporting NOCs in Kuwait?
IOCs bring long-term reservoir management strategies, which are critical. Consultants can come in and offer short-term fixes and insightful ideas, but reservoir development is a decades-long game. IOCs help NOCs see the full lifecycle – from exploration to decommissioning – from a more holistic perspective.
Even when NOCs have international branches, as KPC does, they may still lack the operational history of managing long-term offshore or unconventional fields. This is where IOC partnerships can bring that knowledge to bear. Not by replacing local capabilities, but by complementing them with proven global experience.

Global upstream investments are projected at around USD 570 billion in 2025. How do you view the efforts in Kuwait and the GCC?
Kuwait and the GCC have some of the best reservoir capabilities in the world. The ambition and the investment capabilities are there, but sometimes the bottleneck is the supply chain, not the geology or the capital. Even when the money is committed, supply constraints can delay execution.
Kuwait’s announcement of USD 50 billion in upstream investment over five years is significant. If the goal is to ramp production from 3.2 million bopd to 4 million bopd, especially via offshore or unconventional routes, it makes sense that large capital amounts are needed. These are capital-intensive endeavours – not just for subsurface operations, but also for the enhanced surface infrastructure needed for completions and hydraulic fracturing.

With the rig count rising and Kuwait targeting to increase local content in the sector, will that translate into better outcomes?
It depends. More rigs don’t necessarily bring better production. You need a reservoir-first mindset. If you are over-drilling one area without regard for reservoir depletion or flow modelling, you are just speeding up recovery, not improving it.
Rig count is a tempting metric because it is visible and easy to track, but it is only part of the story. You need integrated reservoir management strategies, and, again, IOCs can help by aligning technical execution with long-term recovery goals. Without that integration, you risk inefficiencies, no matter how many rigs are working.

SPE has been promoting energy conversations beyond petroleum. How is the organisation evolving with this expanded focus?
We are not planning on changing the name, at least not right now, but it is something that we know can be a strength and a challenge. It immediately ties us to subsurface engineering, an area in which our expertise runs deep. But of course, in today’s energy landscape, the conversation is much broader. We are also very much focused on geothermal and CCUS, and many of our members are involved in hydrogen as well.
While we are called the Society of Petroleum Engineers, the majority of our members are not petroleum engineers. They include mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, accountants, lawyers, geologists, geophysicists – people from the whole spectrum of the industry. We are inclusive because it makes no sense not to be when we are all focused on delivering energy solutions.

What steps is SPE taking to support its members and global NOCs with emerging technologies such as CCUS, hydrogen and geothermal?
We have built technical sections dedicated to such areas, virtual global communities that organise talks and online discussions around specific technologies. Anyone from any region can join. For example, we now have a CO2 Storage Resources Management System in addition to our PRMS [Petroleum Resource Management System] in collaboration with other organisations such as WPC [World Petroleum Council] and SEG [Society of Exploration Geophysicists]. Standardisation is crucial when it comes to cross-border concepts.
We are also expanding into geothermal evaluations, and we will eventually expand into hydrogen as well. Whether for regulatory frameworks or engineering solutions, SPE serves as a bridge that helps the industry go from oil-centric to energy-centric, enabling the talent and technical capability to follow that transition.

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