A visiting international oil expert said on Monday that hydraulic drilling would largely increase oil well production by at least 50 percent, citing relevant findings following trial for over 30 years. Delivering a lecture at a symposium organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers branch in Kuwait, Mark Pearson said hydraulic drilling dated back to 1983 but its economic feasibility only appeared in 1988. One of the fruitful experiments in hydraulic drilling took place in the North Sea in 1988, where oil well production increased nine-fold and remained at the same level for 10 successive years, he added. For his part, Ihab Al-Sayed, marketing advisor at the Fox Consulting Services, the sponsor of the symposium, said his company's sponsorship of the event stemmed from its keenness to present the latest thing in oil industry in order to transfer advancement to Kuwaiti oil companies and its engineers with the goal of contributing to boosting the efficiency and productivity of this vital sector in Kuwait. He said the significance of the symposium springs from the fact it focuses on the field of oil wells, particularly hydraulic drilling by using multiphase drilling technology. He noted that the international oil expert has developed very useful technologies in the extraction of oil from inaccessible places. The use of such technologies in Kuwait would help in boosting crude oil production and making use of oil reserves in unreachable places, he pointed out.