By Fiona MacDonald

(Bloomberg) Kuwait plans to boost production from Canadian shale deposits by two thirds and increase output of natural gas in Australia as the OPEC member ramps up efforts to find and develop overseas deposits of the fuel.The international upstream arm of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. sees output of almost 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day at its Canadian shale gas project by year-end, up from 12,000 currently, Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah, acting chief executive officer, said in an interview in Kuwait City.“It will rise to about 60,000 or so once we fully develop it, which will be in the mid-2020s,” he said. “We’re just beginning to understand its potential.”

• The company has total assets of 3.4 billion dinars ($11.2 billion) and is well-funded right now for its current plans
• “We need one or two more strategic acquisitions over the next couple of years to close our strategic gap”
• Kufpec currently pumps 120,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent and plans to reach 150,000 by 2020
• It wants to help tap Kuwait’s “tremendous” shale gas reserves at some point