Kuwait Petroleum Corp is in talks with Indian firms, including Reliance Industries, to build a large refinery and petrochemical plant in Asia's third-largest oil consumer, its top official said on Thursday.
A deal with leading private company Reliance, whose project to nearly double capacity will make it the world's largest refiner, or with a state firm would be a rare successful foreign foray, and give KPC a second Asian source for its crude after a similar deal in China.
"We always wanted to invest in Asia and India is one of the strategic places for us to invest, that's why we are here," Sa'ad Al Shuwaib, chief executive officer of state-owned KPC, said after meeting India's oil minister, Murli Deora.
"We are looking for something either with Reliance or any other company," he told journalists on his first visit to India since taking the post in October.
KPC managing director Abdul Latif Al Houti said his firm would also again look at participating in Indian Oil Corp's 300,000 bpd coastal refinery at Paradip in Orissa, almost a decade after KPC was offered a stake in the project.
"They have changed the configuration so we have to see that," he said.
Plans
KPC was looking for a "large scale" refinery with a capacity of 150,000-400,000 barrels per day (bpd), while the petrochemical project should have an ethylene capacity of up to a million tonnes, Al Houti said.
Al Shuwaib said he held talks on Wednesday with officials from Reliance Industries, whose subsidiary Reliance Petroleum will commission its 580,000 bpd refinery next to its parent's existing 660,000 bpd plant in the state of Gujarat next year.
But he said KPC was only looking at setting up new projects in India, not buying stakes in existing assets. "It could be greenfield or joint acquisition ... We talk about developing a new project, not something other than developing a new project," he said.
Kuwait currently supplies about 250,000 bpd of crude oil to India.
KPC has only recently begun striking downstream deals that will help guarantee future demand for the country's crude oil.
China's top energy and economic planner has approved KPC's joint-venture refinery and petrochemical project with Sinopec Corp in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangdong.
In India, Reliance and other private players have turned almost entirely to the export market as New Delhi forces dominant state refiners to sell domestic fuel far below global crude costs.
Cost hits progress
Asian and Middle East nations are building more than a dozen new refineries to feed demand in developed nations, where there has been little capacity expansion in recent years.
But many projects have been slowed by surging costs, material shortages and a lack of manpower among the contractors who build the units, including a plan for KPC to build the Middle East's biggest refinery at around 600,000 bpd.
But the budget has soared to $14 billion, more than double the initial estimate.
Via: Reuters
A deal with leading private company Reliance, whose project to nearly double capacity will make it the world's largest refiner, or with a state firm would be a rare successful foreign foray, and give KPC a second Asian source for its crude after a similar deal in China.
"We always wanted to invest in Asia and India is one of the strategic places for us to invest, that's why we are here," Sa'ad Al Shuwaib, chief executive officer of state-owned KPC, said after meeting India's oil minister, Murli Deora.
"We are looking for something either with Reliance or any other company," he told journalists on his first visit to India since taking the post in October.
KPC managing director Abdul Latif Al Houti said his firm would also again look at participating in Indian Oil Corp's 300,000 bpd coastal refinery at Paradip in Orissa, almost a decade after KPC was offered a stake in the project.
"They have changed the configuration so we have to see that," he said.
Plans
KPC was looking for a "large scale" refinery with a capacity of 150,000-400,000 barrels per day (bpd), while the petrochemical project should have an ethylene capacity of up to a million tonnes, Al Houti said.
Al Shuwaib said he held talks on Wednesday with officials from Reliance Industries, whose subsidiary Reliance Petroleum will commission its 580,000 bpd refinery next to its parent's existing 660,000 bpd plant in the state of Gujarat next year.
But he said KPC was only looking at setting up new projects in India, not buying stakes in existing assets. "It could be greenfield or joint acquisition ... We talk about developing a new project, not something other than developing a new project," he said.
Kuwait currently supplies about 250,000 bpd of crude oil to India.
KPC has only recently begun striking downstream deals that will help guarantee future demand for the country's crude oil.
China's top energy and economic planner has approved KPC's joint-venture refinery and petrochemical project with Sinopec Corp in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangdong.
In India, Reliance and other private players have turned almost entirely to the export market as New Delhi forces dominant state refiners to sell domestic fuel far below global crude costs.
Cost hits progress
Asian and Middle East nations are building more than a dozen new refineries to feed demand in developed nations, where there has been little capacity expansion in recent years.
But many projects have been slowed by surging costs, material shortages and a lack of manpower among the contractors who build the units, including a plan for KPC to build the Middle East's biggest refinery at around 600,000 bpd.
But the budget has soared to $14 billion, more than double the initial estimate.
Via: Reuters
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