Kuwait starts construction work on Nghi Son Refinery

Kuwait’s Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Abdullah al-Sabah said construction work on a US$6 billion oil refinery in Vietnam has started and the country is committed to the project, the KUNA news agency reported.

Vietnam Oil & Gas Group signed an agreement in April last year to build the 200,000 barrel-a-day Nghi Son Refinery in Thanh Hoa Province and Petrochemical LLC with Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Mitsui Chemicals Inc.

Kuwait Petroleum would allocate half of its budget to refining and petrochemical projects overseas, KUNA also reported, citing a statement from the state-owned oil company. Planned upstream projects are expected to focus on boosting domestic production.

Kuwait Petroleum said last month it is revising its five-year plan to reflect the global economic crisis after announcing in 2008 plans to invest $55 billion in the next five years to expand operations worldwide.

Kuwait, the fifth-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is targeting 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2020 and has boosted oil production capacity to 3 million barrels a day. The emirate pumped 2.11 million barrels a day of oil in March, according to Bloomberg estimates.

thanhnien, bloomberg

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