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DMEA Commentary DMEA
Sinopec finishes Al-Zour
work as Kuwait makes
downstream progress
The Chinese company has completed major works at the new facility, allowing Kuwait room for optimism about progress on its broader downstream objectives.
middle east
What:
Kuwait is making progress on its multi- billion-dollar refinery overhaul project, while the new facility at Al-Zour is also taking shape.
Why:
The Clean fuels and Al-Zour projects are some of the most ambitious in the gulf.
What next:
while there remains a lot of work to be done,
it appears that KPC and its affiliates have started to overcome some of
the delays for which the emirate it renowned.
ChinA’S Sinopec this week announced that it had completed work on the central unit of Kuwait’s new Al-Zour refinery, a key part of the emirate’s plans to expand its downstream capabilities.
Sinopec said that its Sinopec Luoyang Engi- neering subsidiary had “adopted an intelligent collaborative work system and utilised virtual designs to co-ordinate with global partners and share data” under the project which comprised 15 process production plants. This included the hydrodesulphurisation plant.
The 615,000 barrel per day (bpd) greenfield refinery will be integrated with a petrochemical complex at the southern port of Al-Zour, and will mainly produce gasoline, diesel and kero- sene to Euro 5 emission standards.
Wider plans
The project dovetails with the emirate’s so-called Clean Fuels Project (CFP), which comprises the upgrade and expansion of the two existing refin- eries at Mina Abdullah and Mina al-Ahmadi to a combined capacity of 800,000 bpd.
The CFP and Al-Zour facilities are estimated
to cost $15.7bn and $16.1bn respectively, with the latter figure including the cost of associ- ated LnG facilities. On completion next year, Al-Zour will become the region’s largest refinery to have been built in a single phase.
Downstream-focused Kuwait national Petroleum Co. (KnPC) has plans in place to more than double its refining capacity to 2mn bpd by 2035 under a $25bn plan.
The plan was put in motion several years ago to ramp up output from the combined 936,000 bpd of the Mina al-Ahmadi, Mina Abdullah and Shuaiba refineries. The 200,000 bpd Shuaiba facility was closed in March 2017.
Al-Zour is the focal point of the first phase of expansion, which will take capacity to 1.7mn bpd by 2025, with the second phase, which will include a new refinery, raising this figure to 2mn bpd by 2035.
Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC) set up a new subsidiary, Kuwait integrated Petroleum indus- tries Co. (KiPiC), to carry out the development of the Al-Zour project. The second phase of the development will involve the construction of a new refinery.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 50 19•December•2019