Kuwait Oil. Co. (KOC), the operating subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), began commissioning a long-delayed gathering center (GC) on December 26th, the official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported.
KOC Chairman Abdulatif Hamad al-Tourah was quoted by the agency as saying that: “The GC 27, which was built by China National Petroleum Engineering Construction Corp. (CNPECC), has a capacity of 190,000 b/d.”
When CNPECC was awarded the $391.5 million contract in 1995 to build GCs 27 and 28 to increase the emirate’s crude production capacity by 410,000 b/d, it was expected to take 27 months to complete the work.
However, the Chinese firm faced delays from the get-go, and some in the emirate contend that the government had awarded the contract to the inexperienced company as a political concession to Beijing, in hopes that China would continue to hold firm on U.N. sanctions on Iraq as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
Members of the Kuwaiti national assembly in early July questioned Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah about the extensive delays in the CNPECC work.
At that time, the minister was quoted as saying that: “Yes, there is a delay in construction, and yes, there is an existing problem.” He also said then that CNPECC was expected to hand over GC 27 to the Kuwaitis in December 2000 and GC 28 in February 2001.
Even if CNPECC does actually finish GC 28 in February, it is believed that commissioning of both the centers will take several months.
