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DMEA REFINING DMEA

Further progress at Kuwait’s

Clean Fuels initiative

KUWAIT FURTHER progress has been reported at plants in Kuwait. The other is the 466,000 bpd
Kuwait National Petroleum Co. (KNPC)’s Clean Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery south of Kuwait City
Kuwait thrives to raise Fuels Project (CFP), which aims to upgrade the on the Persian Gulf. Both facilities are under-
its refining capacity to company’s refineries to produce Euro-5 standard going modernisation and expansion, in order
2mn bpd by 2035. fuels. to boost the quality and quantity of their motor
In a message on August 18, Texas-based fuel output.
Fluor said its joint venture with South Korean In April, KNPC reported the completion of a
firms Daewoo Engineering & Construction and biofuels expansion at Mina Al-Ahmadi.
Hyundai Heavy Industries, FDH JV, had com- Once the CFP’s first stage is completed,
pleted the provisional handover of installations the refineries will have a combined through-
at the Mina Abdullah refinery to KNPC. put capacity of 800,000 bpd. KNPC is also
FDH JV has a design, construction and building a 615,000 bpd grassroots refinery in
commissioning contract worth $3.4bn for the southern Kuwait, Al-Zour. But after a series of
Mina Abdullah Package (MAB) 2 installations. delays, it is yet to provide a definitive timeframe
This represents the second stage of the refinery’s for Al-Zour’s commissioning. The company
modernisation under the CFP. reported temporarily halting work in late April
The installations include a hydrogen plant after a worker was diagnosed with coronavirus
with steam reformers, a sulphur block consisting (COVID-19).
of a sour water stripper, amine regeneration unit KNPC also shut down its aged 200,000 bpd
and a sulphur recovery unit, as well as utilities Shuaiba refinery three years ago, as part of the
and non-processing facilities. FDH JV was also CFP.
hired to make extensive modifications to some of Al-Zour and additional expansions at
the refinery’s existing units. Kuwait's other refineries are expected to lift
‘Working together with the Fluor-led joint national refining to 2mn bpd by 2035, Ian Simm,
venture team to achieve this important mile- principal advisor at consultancy IGM Energy
stone for the CFP is a true success not only for told NewsBase. Al-Zour will cost $16.1bn in
KNPC but for the State of Kuwait as well, as it total, while the CFP will cost $15.7bn, he said.
will bring further prosperity to all of us,” KNPC’s Al-Zour will include associated LNG
deputy CEO Abdulla Al Ajmi said. “It has been facilities and an integrated petrochemicals
a long, but truly amazing journey that now has complex, expected to produce 1.4mn tpy of
reached its destination.” paraxylene, 940,000 tpy of polypropylene and
The 270,000 barrel per day Mina Abdullah 420,000 tpy of gasoline when it comes online
refinery is the smaller of two oil-processing in 2024. ™

Week 34 27•August•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15