State-run Kuwait Oil Tanker Co (KOTC) plans to buy seven new vessels worth a total of about 525 million Kuwaiti dinars ($1.78 billion) to transport crude and petroleum products, the firm's deputy chairman said in remarks published on Thursday.
Al-Qabas daily and other newspapers quoted KOTC Deputy Chairman Ibrahim al-Ghanem as saying at a company function that the acquisition will include two giant crude tankers, two vessels for transporting associated gas and three for carrying refined oil products.
Ghanem said KOTC parent company state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) was now renting 21 vessels of its total fleet of 24. The tankers were in good shape, he said, adding that the oldest, built in 1990, could still serve an additional number of years.
The company's fleet transports petroleum products, crude and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and has total maximum tonnage of about three million tonnes, making it one of the largest fleets world-wide.