State-owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) signed in Kuwait City on Monday a contract with a company from the Republic of Korea (ROK) to establish a new oil gathering center in the emirate, Kuwait's official KUNA news agency reported.

Cooperated with ROK's SK Engineering and Construction (SKEC), KOC is to establish the center in northern Kuwait with a daily production capacity of 165,000 barrels of oil and 240 million cubic feet of gas.

The project is estimated to cost a total of 180.5 million Kuwaiti dinars (about 613.7 million U.S. dollars) and the construction will take 42 months.

The center is part of Kuwait's strategy aimed at increasing oil production to four million barrels-per-day by the year 2020, said Farouq Al-Zanki, KOC's chairman and managing director.

Kuwait Oil Company mainly deals with exploration, land and marine surveys, production of crude oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbons.

Kuwait boasts proven oil reserves of about 101.5 billion barrels and the emirate now produces 2.4 million barrels of crude oil per day.