KOC starts export of 1st shipment of heavy crude for global market
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Move to bring additional revenues
KUWAIT CITY, July 26: The CEO of Kuwait Oil Company, Imad Sultan, announced the start of export operations for the first shipment of heavy crude for the global market, stressing that exporting this type of crude would bring additional revenues for the country at the present time and will contribute to meet a vital part of the local energy needs when the new Al-Zour refinery project goes put into operation, reports Al-Seyassah daily.
According to the Kuwait News Agency, Sultan went on to say, the heavy oil project in the South Ratqa field is considered one of the most difficult and complex technical projects in the history of the Kuwait Oil Company, explaining that this achievement is the culmination of a tireless work that continued for several years, which represents a special day in the history of the Kuwaiti oil industry.
He explained the company’s strategy specified the production of 60,000 barrels of heavy oil per day from the South Ratqa field as a first stage, provided that this crude is processed at the new Al-Zour refinery to contribute to the production of low-sulfur environmental fuel and supply it to power plants in Kuwait, pointing out that heavy oil will be exported to the global market as a new brand for Kuwait and contribute to the diversification of its crude oil products until the completion of the Al-Zour refinery project.
Sultan added, “This production is added to the heavy oil that is currently being produced from the Umm Naqa field in northern Kuwait, and which has been continuing since 2016, which amounts to 15,000 barrels of heavy oil per day.
Thus, Kuwait’s production of heavy oil by September will be 75,000 barrels per day.” He hinted that this plan was activated last May 22 by exporting the first shipment of heavy oil with a load of 500,000 barrels and followed in the first week of last June exporting the second shipment with a load of 700,000 barrels, adding that this plan will continue to work until the operation of the new Al-Zour refinery project, which will receive heavy oil for the production of low-sulfur environmental fuel, which will be used to produce energy in Kuwait.
He added that after all the relevant detailed technical and engineering studies had been completed, the Kuwait Oil Company signed with a contractor a project to build a central production facility in South Ratqa field in 2015, noting that the project included in addition to the production facility drilling 1518 vertical wells, 930 of which are in the final stages of completion.
Sultan said that the project also includes building a storage capacity at the site to store 300,000 barrels of heavy oil and other storage capacity in the export shed sites with a capacity of equivalent to 1,200 million barrels of heavy oil.
It also includes building 360 kilometers of pipelines intended to transport the produced oil to the export area as well as transport Water and fuel required for operational operations to the facility. The company is also studying the possibility of using renewable energy such as solar energy or wind energy or tale advantage of the Electricity Production Technology (COGEN).
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