Kuwait Opens Pre-Qualification Round for Oil Spill Cleanup
Kuwait Oil Co., the state-owned producer, is inviting international companies to pre-qualify as consultants for a project to clean up oil spills created during the 1991 Gulf War.
“There is an estimated 60 million cubic meters of contaminated soil that needs to be remediated,” Sami al- Rushaid, chairman of KOC, said today as he announced that the prequalification will end Feb. 14. According to the United Nations Compensation Commission, almost $3 billion has been designated for the cleanup, al-Rushaid told reporters at Al- Ahmadi, south of Kuwait City.
Kuwait, holder of the world’s sixth-largest reserves and the fifth-biggest producer in OPEC, was invaded by Iraq in August 1990. Saddam Hussein’s troops set fire to more than 700 oil wells across Kuwait as they were beaten back seven months later.
“The total value of environmental repair projects to be conducted by KOC amounts to more than $2 billion,” said Redha al-Hasan, program manager at Kuwait National Focal Point, which is in charge of the restoration.
“The process has started,” though it will take a long time before all the remediation efforts are completed, said Mohammed Husain, deputy chairman and deputy managing director of planning and gas at KOC.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dahlia Kholaif in Kuwait at dkholaif@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Shaji Mathew at shajimathew@bloomberg.net
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