Kuwait , the third-largest producer in OPEC, plans to spend about $7 billion to develop heavy-oil fields even with crude prices near five-year lows. The first phase of the Lower Fars heavy-oil project will cost $4.2 billion, with contracts to be awarded by the end of this year, Hashem Hashem, chief executive officer of state-owned Kuwait Oil Co., said today at a conference in Kuwait City. KOC, which plans to drill 900 wells and pump 60,000 barrels a day by 2018 in the project’s first phase, targets output of 180,000 barrels a day by 2025 and 270,000 by 2030, Hashem said. Production from Lower Fars and the Ratqa field “will open the door for development of other heavy oil fields in Kuwait,” he said. Brent crude , a pricing benchmark for more than half of the world’s oil, has tumbled 41 percent from its June 19 peak this year […]