Several high-level sources in the country’s energy sector have told GSN that heavy crude is the lifeline to Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC)’s energy future, as production at other fields has reached maturity over the past decade. However, developing this area of activity comes with some significant challenges which are proving hard to surmount.The task is made even harder by the fact that Kuwait has also been facing challenges in several other key fields. Maintenance and the installation of new equipment at the Burgan field has reduced production in that key resource to 1.7m b/d.