The newly appointed managing director of Kuwait's Petrochemical Industry Company), which is at the center of a political crisis over a $2.2 billion compensation payment to Dow Chemical, has said that implementation of a number of planned petrochemicals projects in the emirate depends on the availability of natural gas, the official KUNA news agency reported.
"The company has a number of projects including some ready for implementation and one at the preliminary study stage," KUNA quoted Asaad al-Saad as saying on the sidelines of an official reception on Sunday.
The proposed petrochemicals projects include new facilities to produce olefins and aromatic chemicals from natural gas feedstock, he said.
Saad said PIC's projects were in line with the strategic priorities of its parent, Kuwait Petroleum Corp, and that KPC and its affiliates would prioritize their work accordingly.
Saad's comments closely follow remarks Saturday by his counterpart Ali Shammari at KPC subsidiary Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, who said gas supply projects would be KGOC's top priority. In particular, Shammari said the company would seek to speed the development of the Dorra offshore gas field in a joint project with Saudi Arabia.
Despite having large reserves of natural gas associated with its oil fields, OPEC member Kuwait is currently a net gas importer. KPC and its upstream operating units, including Kuwait Oil Company and KGOC, have long sought to develop the emirate's additional non-associated gas resources.
However, most of that gas is in technically challenging deep deposits laced with toxic hydrogen sulfide, or else, like the Dorra field, is in territory shared with neighboring states.
In the meantime, Kuwait imports LNG to cover domestic gas demand during the peak summer air-conditioning season.
Saad, who was appointed head of PIC a week ago in a restructuring of KPC's management, said he would announce more detailed strategic plans for PIC next week. He said he planned to work in detail with every sector of the company.
"And we'll start from where others have ended," he said.
Shammari, who also received his current posting in the management shake-up, indicated that he, too, would seek to build on the work of the previous corporate administration.
Last Monday, Kuwait Petroleum replaced the heads of all its eight subsidiaries following controversy over the compensation payment to Dow, which resulted from the abrupt cancellation in December 2008 of a $17.4 billion petrochemicals joint venture withe PIC in Kuwait. The International Chamber of Commerce's International Court ruled that PIC had violated its contract with Dow, but Kuwaiti lawmakers called on the government to refuse to hand over the damages payment.
KPC has denied its management restructuring was related to the political crisis over Dow. It said it was seeking to introduce new blood to cope with current and future oil sector challenges.
