Kuwait boosts oil exports capacity

State-owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has signed what it dubbed its largest-ever crude export facilities contract with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries. The contract is valued at US $1.2 billion and is for the construction of an oil terminal at Mina Al Ahmadi to boost Kuwait’s oil exporting capability to three million barrels per day (bpd) from the present two million bpd.

The agreement includes building 19 storage tanks, pumps, and offshore facilities by June 2008. The contract comes after a total of $1.3 billion in work had already been booked for this year, Hyundai officials said.

Hyundai has received a letter of intent from KOC for the engineering, procurement, construction (EPC), and commissioning contract for onshore and offshore works of the crude oil export facilities.

Speaking about the project, Farouk Al Zanki, KOC chairman and managing director, said, “Sometimes dreams do come true, and in the case of KOC and Hyundai Heavy Industries that dream has become a reality today. This is the highest value single project that KOC will ever sign and the most strategic.

“The contract will add to KOC’s capabilities for exporting crude. KOC needs to be able to export crude to match its capabilities in the fields. It is a bottleneck that will now be surmounted in a timely manner with the signing of this project.” The crude oil export facilities project will install the new storage tanks with an operating capacity of 11.4 million barrels, and also upgrade and modify existing buoys. Kuwait produces about 2.7 million bpd of crude oil, most of which passes through Mina Al Ahmadi, where the country has a 442,700 bpd refinery.