Russia, Kuwait discuss energy cooperation

Electric power engineering industry also discussed

MOSCOW, March 26: Russia and Kuwait during the bilateral meeting have discussed the issues of cooperation in oil-and-gas and electric power engineering industries, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Saturday.

“We were able to discuss the issues of bilateral cooperation between our countries in the sphere of energetics, namely oil, gas and electric power engineering industries,” Novak said after holding talks with Kuwaiti Oil Minister Issam Abdulmohsen Almarzooq.

“Due to the fact that Kuwait produces a lot of oil — it is one of the leading countries [in this], we have much in common regarding the development of the oil industry ... A number of our [Russian] companies show interest [in projects aiming] to increase oil recovery at Kuwaiti mineral deposits as well as in technology related to the extraction of tight oil, heavy oil,” Novak said.

“We have discussed the deliveries of liquefied natural gas to Kuwait. There are bright prospects as Kuwait plans to complete construction of one of the largest regasification terminals in the world by 2020 and this will open a great direction for cooperation in the gas sphere,” the minister also said.

Russia’s biggest gas producer Gazprom negotiates supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Kuwait in the framework of the Energy Minister Alexander Novak’s visit to that country, a source at the Russian delegation told TASS.

The source said, the talks continue in “a rather progressive mood,” but it is too early yet to speak about finalizing them. The parties discuss a long-term contract, the source continued, but Kuwait as yet satisfies own demand in gas by supplies from Qatar. “However, Russian gas is also interesting to them,” the source added.

The Russian monopoly since 2010 has supplied to Kuwait four tanker under spot contracts. In 2015, Gazprom and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation inked a memorandum on mutual understanding in cooperation in the oil and gas sphere.

Kuwait is building a new LNG terminal, which should be ready by 2020. Earlier, Gazprom invited Kuwait companies to participate in the Baltic LNG project in the Leningrad region