KNPC Signs Gas Project With Hyundai

KUWAIT CITY, 16 May 2005 — State-run Kuwait National Petroleum Co. (KNPC) yesterday signed a deal worth $400 million with South Korean Hyundai Engineering to upgrade a liquefied natural gas plant in Kuwait. Work on the project will start in June and will be completed by the end of 2007, KNPC Chairman Sami Al-Rasheed said during the signing ceremony. It aims at modernizing the liquefied natural gas plant at Al-Ahmadi refinery by enhancing the ethane recovery rate from the current 55 percent to 96 percent, he said. The ethane will be sold to state-owned Petrochemicals Industries Co. to be used as feedstock for the production of petrochemicals.