Kuwait Plans Tender for Refinery, Clean-Fuel Project Consultants

Kuwait plans to issue a tender within four weeks to choose consultants for its new refinery and clean-fuel projects, the state-run news agency KUNA reported today, citing an official.

Each consulting contract will cost about $300 million and there may be as many as nine international pre-qualified consultants for the projects, the news service cited Fahad al- Ajmi, chairman of Kuwait National Petroleum Co., as saying. The budget for the projects, planned to be completed by 2018, is about 8.5 billion dinars ($30.5 billion), al-Ajmi said, according to KUNA.

Kuwait National, the state-run refiner, is awaiting final approval from the Supreme Petroleum Council, the country’s highest decision-making body for oil policy, on the 615,000 barrel-a-day refinery. Kuwait National approached companies including Fluor Corp. (FLR) of Irving, Texas, Technip SA (TEC) and U.K.- based Amec Plc (AMEC) to work as project management consultants, KNPC’s spokesman said in a Sept. 27 interview.

The Al-Zour project, which will help meet domestic demand, stalled three years ago amid political opposition. The project got the first approval from the Supreme Council last June.

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