Page 11 - MEOG Week 01 2023

MEOG TENDERS MEOG

KOC hands Worley FEED work amid

concerns about Kuwaiti projects

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

Week 01 04•January•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P11