Page 9 - DMEA Week 42 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA

KNPC deals with fire at Mina Al-Ahmadi

MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTREAM-FOCUSED Kuwait National The fire broke out at Mina Al-Ahmadi’s
Petroleum Co. (KNPC) reported an explosion 33,000 bpd atmospheric residual oil desul-
and fire at the country’s Mina Al-Ahmadi refin- phurisation unit (ARDS), with the local Al-Rai
ery which injured several workers but did not newspaper quoting company sources as saying
have an impact on operations. that the unit is part of the old refinery, with the
Speaking to state-owned Kuwait TV, KNPC’s explosion having occurred in “one of the heat
executive vice president of support services exchangers”.
Abdulaziz Al-Duaij said that firefighters were The company later clarified that it had been
working to normalise the situation. “The refin- “able to fully control the fire that broke out […]
ery operations and export operations were not in the 42nd Residual Oil Desulphurisation Unit”
affected and there has been no impact to local at Mina Al-Ahmadi.
marketing operations and supplies to the elec- Elsewhere in the country, fellow KPC affili-
tricity and water ministry,” he said. ate Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co.
Via its Twitter account, KNPC said: “A num- (KIPIC) is nearing completion on the project it
ber of minor injuries and cases of suffocation as was set up to manage, the new Al-Zour refinery
a result of inhalation of fumes occurred among which is expected to come on stream in Novem-
the contractor’s workers. First aid was provided ber. Adding a further 615,000 bpd to Kuwait’s
to the injured on the site, and they are all in good refining capacity, the project is estimated to cost
condition. Others were transferred to Al-Adan around $16.1bn, including the cost of associated
Hospital and their condition is stable.” petrochemical and LNG facilities.
Alongside the larger Mina Abdullah unit, the Movement on the development has sped
refinery was the focus of the Clean Fuels Pro- up of late and London-listed Technip Energies
ject (CFP), a $15.6bn programme to increase was recently awarded a six-year contract for
throughput capacity at facilities to 454,000 bar- engineering and management services across
rels per day and 346,000 bpd respectively, while the Al-Zour complex. The project was reported
improving environmental performance and to have reached 98.67% completion in early
facilitating the production of cleaner fuels in line September.
with Euro-IV and Euro-V standards. Kuwait Once complete, Al-Zour will take Kuwait’s
Petroleum Corp. (KPC) subsidiary KNPC throughput capacity to 1.415mn bpd, while the
launched full operations on the CFP last month country has previously spoken of plans to reach
following a lengthy development process. 2mn bpd.™

Week 42 21•October•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9