Kuwait’s Supreme Petroleum Council confirmed that the KPI overseas arm of state oil firm KPC has taken 50% of Oman’s planned 230,000 b/d, $7bn Duqm export refinery. The announcement comes after former KPI chief Bakhit al-Rashidi was promoted to oil minister. This underlines the centrality of overseas downstream expansion in Kuwait’s petroleum strategy, although the government’s fractious relationship with parliament causes a high turnover of oil ministers.
While development of Kuwait’s Jurassic gas resources and increasing capacity for LNG imports are among the new minister’s priorities (MEES, 19 January), Mr Rashidi’s former role saw Kuwait push for overseas refining interests. KPI currently holds 50% in the 248,000 b/d Milazzo refinery in Italy and 35.1% in the 200,000 b/d Nghi Son refinery in Vietnam, which is currently being commissioned. The start-up of the Vietnam plant takes KPC overall refining capacity to 1.16mn b/d on a gross and 910,000 b/d on a net basis. Over 20% of KPC net refining capacity is now overseas, a share that is set to rise to 28% by the mid-2020s (see table). (CONTINUED - 511 WORDS)
