Kuwait refinery contractors submit bank guarantees

Three international consortiums awarded multi-billion dollar refinery deals by Kuwait last month have submitted bank guarantees to the Gulf emirate and are expected to formally sign the contracts on April 10, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Monday.

National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has offered guarantees to two consortiums while National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), one of the largest banks in the Arab region, has signed a guarantee agreement with the remaining consortium, the Arabic language daily Al Anba said, quoting unnamed sources in the Kuwaiti National Petroleum Company (KNPC).

The paper said the three guarantee deals have a total value of around KD165 million ($595 million) but it did not mention the value of each package.

“The three consortiums have submitted bank guarantees for the contracts ahead of the deadline set by KNPC on Monday,” the report said.

“KNPC sources said they expected the clean fuel project (CFP) contract, the largest refining deal in Kuwait, to be signed on April 10.”

Kuwait, a key Opec oil producer, has awarded three contracts worth nearly $12 billion to consortiums led by Japanese, British and US firms for the development of its Mina Abdullah and Mina Al Ahmadi refineries. The groups include JGC Corp of Japan, the UK’s Petrofac, and Fluor Corp of the US.

The CFP project, which also includes construction of the 615,000-bpd Al Zour refinery in southern Kuwait, will nearly double the country’s refining production to around 1.4 million bpd.

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