Kuwait plans to offer a stake of up to 40 per cent in a planned $6 billion refinery project to a foreign partner, state-run Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) said.
“We have contacts with international companies about this,” KNPC chairman Sami Al Rushaid said, adding that the state would also offer a 20 percent stake in the 615,000 barrel-per-day refinery to private Kuwaiti investors.
“We want to ensure that the stake of the foreign investor does not exceed that of KNPC and therefore it will be a maximum of 40 per cent,” Rushaid said, adding that Kuwait would carry out the project even if it did not find a foreign partner.
Twelve international contractors have pre-qualified for the refinery, which will be built in the south by 2010 and which will replace the ageing 200,000-bpd Shuaiba refinery.
KNPC is in charge of the downstream sector in Kuwait, which has a crude oil output capacity of 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd).
Kuwait is also expanding its refining capacity abroad. China gave preliminary approval to a $5 billion refinery joint venture between Sinopec and Kuwait Petroleum Corp.