Page 8 - DMEA Week 01 2023

DMEA COMPANIES DMEA

KOC hires Worley for support work

amid concerns about projects

MIDDLE EAST THE upstream arm of Kuwait Petroleum Corp. forced KPC to sell parts of its investments for
(KPC) last week awarded Australian firm Wor- nearly $770mn,” it continued.
ley a five-year front-end engineering and design Alrai noted that “KPC is now taking meas-
(FEED) contract to improve efficiency across its ures to improve its financial position,” with a
facilities. view to reducing cumulative debts to the gov-
According to a company statement, Worley ernment across various departments.
was hired to provide Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC) with Tempering that negativity, another local
“traditional services and sustainability related paper, Alanba, this week cited internal KPC doc-
services to develop new solar, power and water uments as suggesting that the company would
projects that will further improve efficiency and issue 15 new tenders during the 2023/24 finan-
increase the capacity of KOC’s facilities.” cial year, which begins on April 1.
The work will be carried out by Worley’s The tenders are expected to cover the supply
offices in Kuwait, Canada and the UK. The com- of equipment, oilfield systems operations, IT
pany’s CEO Chris Ashton was quoted as saying: maintenance, management and repairs, as well
“This agreement for PMC and other services as maintenance services for oil installations. It
further strengthens our longstanding relation- added, though, that these do not include tenders
ship with KOC. We look forward to continuing to be issued by any of KPC’s eight subsidiaries,
to support KOC with their growth strategy and which include KOC. ™
sustainability targets.”
The announcement of the deal came just a
few days after a local newspaper quoted a KPC
report as casting concerns about its financial
wellbeing and ability to fund major oil projects.
The Arabic-language Alrai said that KPC
had highlighted a deficit of nearly KWD2.93bn
($9.65bn) at the end of 2021/22 financial year,
which ended on March 31. It said this was
caused by an increase in KPC’s “financial com-
mitments to various government departments
... which was exacerbated by a decline in revenue
during 2021 as result of the spread of [the] coro-
navirus pandemic.”
As a result, “[oil] projects in Kuwait are facing
serious challenges as a result of this financial gap,
which reached in some months nearly 97.7% of
KPC’s commitments to projects,” it said. “[This] Worley has been contracted to help KOC make its facilities more efficient (Photo:

B Investments to sell 6.38% stake

in TotalEnergies filling stations

AFRICA B Investments, a subsidiary of Egypt-focused The sale accompanies a separate BPE Part-
private equity firm BPE Partners, has agreed to ners-backed vehicle’s sale of another 9% of
sell its entire 6.38% stake in Total Energies Mar- TEME to TEMA for $39mn, thus handing
keting Egypt (TEME), the local retail filling sta- TEMA a consolidated 15.38% stake in TEME.
tions arm of the French oil major TotalEnergies, The TEME share purchase by TEMA aims to
to TotalEnergies Marketing Afrique (TEMA) facilitate Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC)
for $27.6mn, the company said in a press release. in its bid to buy 50% of TEME for up to $203mn.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 05•January•2023