State-owned Kuwait Oil Tanker Company’s (KOTC) KD54m ($180m) gas plant in Umm al-Aish has come online with a production capacity of 15 million gas cylinders a year.

The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) filling plant covers an area of 150,000 square metres and includes six underground storage tanks according to the state-controlled news agency KUNA.

It also includes LPG pumps, compressor stations, and truck loading facilities.

KOTC is responsible for the international transportation of Kuwaiti crude. It also has the franchise for the marketing and distribution of LPG within the state.

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project was South Korea’s Hanwha Engineering and Construction.

Kuwait’s Heavy Engineering Industries and Shipbuilding Company (HEISCO) worked as a subcontractor on the project.

The scope for the project included:

• LPG mounded storage tanks (six) 
• LPG pumps compressor stations
• Truck loading facilities
• Filling hall with three filling lines with a minimum capacity of 1,600 cylinders an hour for each line, with a possible future extension of an extra filling line
• Cylinder maintenance workshop
• Technical workshops and buildings
• Associated facilities

The filling plant was constructed to support state downstream operator Kuwait National Petrochemical Company’s (KNPC) fourth LPG train at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery.

The fourth LPG gas train was completed and commissioned during 2014.

Ahead of completion, the fourth gas train was expected to have a capacity to process 805 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas and 106,000 b/d of condensates.

Bids for the contract to build a fifth gas train at the refinery are currently being evaluated. Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas is the low bidder on the contract with a price of KD433.7m.

The contract is expected to be awarded within two months.

A $550m project to build an LPG tank farm at Mina al-Ahmadi is currently being executed and is expected to be completed in June this year. The main contractor for the LPG tank farm project is GS Engineering and Construction.