Kuwait pre-qualifies 11 foreign companies for new refinery

Kuwait has pre-qualified 11 international companies for the construction of a new 6.3-billion-dollar oil refinery with a capacity of more than 600,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC), which owns all Kuwaiti refineries, said Wednesday the project has been divided into four major contracts.
Manufacturing units in the refinery have been divided into two tenders, while the third is for building utilities and services and the fourth for storage tanks and a pier.
The prequalified companies include Technip Italy, Foster Wheeler Italiana, and South Korea's GS Engineering and Construction Corp and SK Engineering and Construction Co.
They also include Korean Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co, US Stone and Webster International Inc and United Arab Emirates-based Petrofac International Ltd.
The refinery will be built in Al-Zour area, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital near the border with Saudi Arabia. The project is planned to be completed in early 2010. KNPC chairman Sami al-Rasheed said last month he expected the company to invite bids from the prequalified firms during April.
Kuwait currently has three refineries at Al-Ahmadi, Mina Abdullah and Shuaiba, all in the emirate's oil-rich southern region. They have a combined refining capacity of about 915,000 bpd.
State-owned KNPC plans to modernise the first two at an estimated cost of three billion dollars, a project planned for completion in early 2011.
Once the new refinery and the upgrades are completed, KNPC plans to shut down Shuaiba. This will leave three refineries with a production capacity of around 1.4 million bpd, according to Rasheed.
The Opec member sits on 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and currently produces 2.6 million bpd of crude oil at full capacity.
Kuwait plans to invest up to 40 billion dollars in the next 15 years to modernise its oil sector which generates more than 90 percent of public revenue. The emirate seeks to increase its output capacity to four million bpd by 2020.