Page 14 - DMEA Week 10 2022

DMEA TENDERS DMEA

Kuwait approves tender extension

for refinery maintenance

MIDDLE EAST KUWAIT’S Central Agency for Public Tenders Al-Ahmadi increasing to 346,000 bpd.
(CAPT) this week approved the third extension Just a few weeks after launch, KNPC
of a Kuwait National Petroleum Co. (KNPC) announced that an explosion had occurred at
tender for maintenance and repair work to be Mina Al-Ahmadi, causing a fire and injuring
carried out at the Mina Abdullah and Mina several workers. Again though, there was no
Al-Ahmadi refineries. operational impact.
The 12-month contract, which according to The fire broke out at Mina Al-Ahmadi’s
the Arabic language Al-Rai daily was awarded 33,000-bpd atmospheric residual oil desulfuri-
to the local Kuwait Center for Field Mainte- zation (ARDS) unit number 42 within the old
nance Co. in early February, is worth KD1.6mn part of the refinery.
($5.3mn) and will be split evenly between the In January, another fire broke out at the
two facilities. refinery, this time at gas liquefaction unit num-
The CAPT also gave permission for KNPC ber 32, killing at least two workers and injuring
to float a tender for tank cleaning and repair 10 more, though production was not affected
works, fiberglass and paint works in the refin- given that the unit was already out of service for
ery, and liquid gas production facilities in Mina maintenance.
Al-Ahmadi. Elsewhere in the country, fellow KPC affili-
The two refineries were the focus of the Clean ate Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co.
Fuels Project (CFP), a $15.6bn programme to (KIPIC) is nearing completion on the project it
increase combined throughput capacity at the was set up to manage, the new Al-Zour refinery
facilities 800,000 bpd, while improving environ- which is expected to come on stream in Febru-
mental performance and facilitating the pro- ary. Adding a further 615,000 bpd to Kuwait’s
duction of cleaner fuels in line with Euro-IV and refining capacity, the project is estimated to cost
Euro-V standards. around $16.1bn, including the cost of associated
KNPC, a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum petrochemical and LNG facilities.
Corp. (KPC), launched full operations on the Once complete, Al-Zour will take Kuwait’s
CFP in September following a lengthy devel- throughput capacity to 1.415mn bpd, while the
opment process with Mina Abdullah’s capac- country has previously spoken of plans to reach
ity increasing to 454,000 bpd and that of Mina 2mn bpd. ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 10 10•March•2022