The local Gulf Spic Engineering has won a KD5.4m ($18.8m) deal to develop a new crude oil manifold in central Kuwait.

Gulf Spic signed the contract with state energy giant Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) on 4 January, after submitting the lowest price for the deal in a competitive bid round in May 2009.

The company will build a crude oil manifold linking crude oil pipelines with Gathering Centre 27 in the centre of the country. KOC uses gathering centres to collect and separate oil and gas produced at its oil fields before distributing it to refineries in the east of the country.

The deal is part of a wider scheme to upgrade and add new gathering centres across the country to boost the capacity of Kuwait’s oil and gas distribution network.

KOC says it can produce 3 million barrels a day (b/d) of oil although its current output is only about 2.2 million b/d because of production quotas imposed by the international oil cartel Opec, of which it is a member.

The company wants to be able to produce and distribute 4 million b/d by 2020.