Kuwait: Al-Zour refinery plan bites the dust

The country's ambitions to expand its downstream sector have suffered another blow, with the cancellation of a planned 0.615m barrels a day (b/d) oil refinery at Al-Zour. The estimated $15bn plant would have been the world's fourth largest, supplying low-sulphur fuel oil to the state's power plants. Prime minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah said in mid-March that the project had been cancelled following a probe into the manner in which contracts were awarded by the project's client, state-owned refiner Kuwait National Petroleum (KNPC). Al-Zour would have boosted overall Kuwaiti refining capacity to 1.415m b/d, along with upgrades to two other refineries. This follows the scrapping, i