Kuwait yesterday officially launched operations ...
Kuwait yesterday officially launched operations at a new oil gathering centre (GC), a long-delayed project in the west of the Opec member state built by a Chinese firm. "It (GC 28) is at a start up stage and it is below the design capacity of 210,000 barrels per day (bpd)," said head of the state's Kuwait Oil Co (KOC) Abdel-Latif Al Turrah at a ceremony in this oil-producing region 110 kilometres southwest of the capital Kuwait City.
He said the new centre was expected to reach its design production capacity within 12 months. The new centre started operations on March 22 to mark 30 years of diplomatic ties between the small state and China.
In December, KOC began operating GC 27, also in the west, with a production capacity of 190,000 bpd. Turrah said production at GC 27 was still being built up and has yet to reach full capacity.
He did not give production figures but other sources told Reuters that GC 27 averaged around 80,000 bpd in March while the latest centre, GC 28, started test operations at 20,000 bpd which was raised to 77,000 bpd within five days.
China National Petroleum Engineering Construction Corp was awarded a $391.5 million project in 1995 to build GCs 27 and 28 but the project was plagued by costly delays, officials earlier said. Under the original deal, the firm was to complete the project in 27 months. Kuwait, which sits on almost 10 per cent of the world's proven oil reserves, currently has an Opec production quota of 1.941 million bpd. Since the 1991 Gulf War ended a seven-month Iraqi occupation, Kuwait has awarded several contracts to build new GCs and repair existing ones after the country's vital oil sector was severely damaged during the Gulf crisis.
gulf-news.com
