KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), the Gulf Arab state’s top state oil company, plans investments and projects worth 20 billion dinars ($74.85 billion) in the next five years, an official said in remarks published on Sunday.

The investment figure is higher than an earlier estimate given by Kuwait’s Oil Minister Mohammad al-Olaim, who said in June the OPEC producer would spend $55 billion on oil projects over the next five years.

The amount included 5 billion dinars designated for a planned upgrade of Kuwait’s Mina Abdullah and Mina al-Ahmadi refineries, Ali al-Hajeri, head of administrative and financial affairs at KPC, told al-Rai newspaper.

State refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC), a unit of KPC, said in July it planned a tender to boost capacity of the two refineries to 800,000 barrels per day from 600,000 bpd which might be worth as much as 4 billion dinars. No detailed cost estimate for the project has been given yet.

The projected KPC budget through to 2013 also includes 4 billion dinars to build the 615,000 bpd al-Zour refinery, Hajeri said.

KPC also planned several other projects to boost productivity and performance of the oil sector, he added.

Kuwait, the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter, sits on 10 percent of proven global reserves.