DMEA: KIPIC launches first phase of al-Zour refinery

Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co. (KIPIC), a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), has officially launched the first phase of the al-Zour refinery, a newbuild plant with a throughput capacity of 615,000 barrels per day (bpd).

KIPIC announced the start-up in a post on Twitter, saying that the plant had begun to produce and sell low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) for delivery to local thermal power plants (TPPs) last month. The refinery is designed to process heavy crude oil from Kuwaiti fields and will turn out kerosene, jet fuel and naphtha feedstock for petrochemical production as well as LSFO, it reported.

Thus far, the plant has only delivered fuel to local customers. However, two sources close to the matter told Reuters that KIPIC was on track to export its first cargo of petroleum products around mid-November. The company will send a shipment of 40,000 tonnes of naphtha to a buyer in Asia, the sources said.