Kuwait’s National Assembly is to launch an investigation into alleged misuse of public funds over the under-construction 615,000 b/d Al Zour refinery, which is due online by 2021. MP Faisal Al-Kandari has put forward the claims and is one of many MPs planning to “grill” oil minister Bakheet al-Rashidi over the matter. Kuwait has a long history of such investigations, and indeed the Al Zour project was previously cancelled in 2009 due to one such probe (MEES, 23 March 2009). Perhaps most infamously, Kuwait had to pay $2.16bn to US firm Dow Chemicals after an investigation led to the cancellation of the $17.4bn K-Dow JV (MEES, 4 June 2012).
The probe will cast a shadow over KNPC’s recently announced downstream strategy to 2040, in which the company plans to spend $25bn by 2040 and add 584,000 b/d refining capacity. (CONTINUED - 133 WORDS)