Kuwait to launch 82 mega-projects
KPC SIGNS $12bn LNG SUPPLY DEAL WITH SHELL Targeted development part of drive to diversify national income
KUWAIT CITY, May 11, (Agencies): This year’s development plan involves 82 major projects, five public shareholding businesses and 10 BOT-based enterprises, and governmental allocations for development projects for 2013-14 and 2014-15 hit KD 10.2 billion ($36.2 billion), a senior development official said here on Sunday.
Such development projects would undoubtedly spur and stimulate the country’s national economy to include wider aspects like housing, education, health, airports and harbors, in addition to oil and infrastructure projects, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (SCPD) Adel Al-Wugayan addressed the 12th conference on the role of the private sector in development and infrastructure projects held here today.
The targeted development projects are part of the State’s drive to diversify national income sources by means of promoting the private sector’s investments and boosting the competitive edge of other sectors, Al-Wugayan said in a speech on behalf of Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and Minister of State for Planning and Development Hind Al-Sabeeh.
The SCPD will deliver soon its 2015-16/2019-20 second medium-term development plan to involved state agencies and bodies, he said, adding that the SCPD has put into consideration obstacles that impeded the previous development blueprint, mainly red-tape.
The government and the SCPD are seriously working together in order to realize tangible development steps while taking into account other countries’ successful experiments in this regard, Al-Wugayan added.
He pointed to several steps taken to encourage the private sector’s development such as the privatization of existing governmental activities and the stimulation of partnership between both public and private sectors.
Tackle
On his part, the head of the organizing committee, Abdullatif Al-Abdulrazzaq, said the two-day conference will primarily tackle how to encourage the private sector to get involved in public development projects, chiefly infrastructure ones.
But, he emphasized that the government should devise a holistic and unequivocal development blueprint based on specific development requirements targeting national interests and future goals.
To outline Kuwait’s future strategic vision, the government should harness efforts and utilize executive tools and mechanisms to work out an annual plan and development programs and invite the private sector to help in the fulfillment of this strategic vision, he pointed out.
In other news, Kuwait’s state oil group said it signed a sixyear liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply deal with Royal Dutch Shell on Sunday, worth an estimated $12 billion, as the major oil exporter seeks to meet energy demands for the hot summer months.
The deal between Kuwait Petroleum Corp ( KPC) and Shell was reported last month in a Kuwaiti newspaper but with no financial details.
Deal
KPC also plans to sign a $3 billion deal LNG supply deal with BP on Monday, said Nasser al-Mudaf, head of KPC’s international marketing division.
He did not provide the volume of the super-cooled gas that would be supplied by the companies. A Shell spokesman said he could not comment on details of commercial agreements.
Kuwait wants to burn LNG instead of resorting to diesel and crude oil, which have higher harmful emissions, KPC said in a statement announcing the Shell deal.
Kuwait began importing LNG in 2009 and signed deals with Shell and Swiss-based trader Vitol to supply it from April to October, the period of peak power demand, for the last four years.
Surging air conditioning demand in the scorching Middle Eastern summer and a lack of domestic supply mean Kuwait needs to import more gas each year to feed its power plants.
Kuwait signed an LNG deal with fellow Gulf state Qatar last month.
Minister of Oil Dr Ali Al-Omair Sunday termed as “excellent” commercial relations between Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC)
and Shell, with the multi-billion-dinar Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contract as the culmination of this relation.
Al-Omair, also Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs, made the remarks on the sidelines of a ceremony to sign the LNG contract.
He said the contract would be harmless to environment because LNG was the least harmful energy source on environment.
Kuwait, he added, would also save KD hundreds of millions because it would not be burning oil but rather replace it with LNG.
Diesel and crude oil consist of high concentration of sulphur which harms the environment, said Al-Omair, in addition to the consequent costly maintenance of power stations.