Kuwait Petroleum Corporation's affiliate Kipic (Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company) has reported that the construction of the 615,000 bbl/d Al-Zour crude oil refining complex is 80% complete and shall be completed by 2021. The US$16bn project will entail two other separate facilities apart from the refinery, i.e. LNG processing facilities and a petrochemicals complex. As of March 2019, more than 65% of the LNG units within the complex had already been completed.
In December 2018, Kuwait announced plans to invest US$25bn in new downstream projects over the next 20 years. This will encompass in particular the construction of a new refinery in order to bring the country's total refining capacity to 2 mb/d by 2035 from the current 762,000 bbl/d. The country is currently modernising its two existing refineries, namely Mina Al-Ahmadi (466,000 bbl/d) and Mina Abdullah (270,000 bbl/d). The 95,000 bbl/d Shuaiba refinery was shut down in 2017. Once all the current projects are complete, Kuwait's refining capacity will reach 1.4 mb/d.
In order to reach the 2 mb/d target, a study for the construction of a fourth refining complex is being carried out. The project would have to be of similar size to the 615,000 b/d Al-Zour complex and could be located in Al-Zour (no further detail so far).
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