Kuwait Plans to Begin Year-round LNG Imports from 2013

According to Farouk al-Zanki, the CEO of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), with an aim of meeting the surging demand for gas Kuwait is about to launch its year-round imports of LNG as of 2013, Platts informs.

Since 2009 Kuwait, member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has been importing LNG only on seasonal basis, i.e. during the summer. The statistics indicate that the consumption ratio between oil and gas is 60% – 40% in the summer season, a total of 250,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) of both fuels. As a result, the only imminent solution is to introduce year-round LNG import.

What is more, Kuwait plans to increase its gas output from 1.13 Bcf/d to 4 Bcf/d by 2030. In that respect, Zanki expressed hope in development of Kuwait’s indigenous gas resources which would reduce the Emirate’s dependency on import.

“Our plan is to use gas for power generation so we can maximize oil exports,” he said.

In addition, he called the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to act quickly in order to devise a gas strategy which will serve as the groundwork for assembling regional gas network.

“We need to cooperate to see if we can come up with a gas network. We have to optimize our resources,” he added.

In March, KPC signed a 3 year long contract renewal on supply of diesel, starting January 2012 and supply of fuel oil for the year 2012 with Pakistan State Oil Company Ltd.

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LNG World News Staff, April 10, 2012; Image: csrmiddleeast