Kuwait fuel depot complete

Front end engineering design (Feed) work has been completed for the project to build local marketing depot at Matlaa in Kuwait, according to an industry source. The feed is complete and the project is seeing good progress. While the feed is complete it may be revisited to add provisions for renewable power facilities, according to the source. If extra renewable power facilities are added it is not expected to slow the project down. “Both solar and wind power are being considered to reduce the burden on the grid,” the source said. “If these facilities are added it should be relatively simple to amend the existing plans.” Over the last three months a government-driven push for increased use of renewables has intensified according to industry sources. Kuwait has struggled to keep up with a substantial increase in electricity consumption. According to research by MEED, installed capacity in the country will have to rise by 5.75GW by 2020 as well as replacing or upgrading outdated units. Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) is developing the Matlaa fuel depot project to meet the growing demand for petroleum products in the local market as well as cutting transportation costs and maintaining strategic stocks in depots as per KPC recommendations. The Matlaa depot will be Kuwait’s third fuel depot and will serve the north of the country where increased demand is expected due to large housing developments. Its scope includes cross-country pipelines, new pumping facilities and a storage tanks. Oil will be pumped to the depot by pipeline before being distributed to petrol stations by fuel tankers. The Matlaa local marketing depot is a greenfield project with an estimated budget value of $798m.