KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait is scrapping a $14 billion project to build a fourth refinery in the oil-rich country, the prime minister said in remarks published yesterday. The announcement was the second cancellation of a major oil project since December amid government corruption allegations.
Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah told Al-Watan newspaper the decision, which the Cabinet will formally take today, was in compliance with results from an investigation by Kuwait’s financial watchdog, the Audit Bureau.
He did not elaborate.
The scrapped refinery was to come on line 2012 with a capacity of 615,000 barrels a day.
The state-owned Kuwait National Petroleum Co. said in May it has awarded the main $3.99 billion contract to build it to Japan’s JGC and South Korea’s GS Engineering and Construction Corp. Other South Korean companies were to build some of its facilities. Bowing to lawmaker pressure, the Cabinet in December backtracked on a $17.4 billion joint venture with US giant Dow Chemical Co., just days before the petrochemical project was to be launched. Legislators had threatened to question the prime minister in Parliament because they said the deal was not transparent and too expensive.