Kuwait launches huge Al-Zour oil refinery

KIPIC, the unit in charge of the Al-Zour refinery project in Kuwait, announced on Sunday that its 615,000 barrels per day (BPD) refinery has started commercial operations.

The Al-Zour refinery will be one of the largest in the world. Located 90 km south of Kuwait City, the grassroots enterprise will have a processing capacity of 615,000 barrels per day of light KEC crude or 535,000 barrels per day of heavy blend, handling 43 per cent of the country's refining backlog. Its storage capacity will be an impressive 6.5m barrels.

The plant is designed to process large volumes of heavy crude oil from Kuwait's rich oil reservoirs and convert it into EU5 compliant low sulphur fuel oil (LSFO 1%). The plant includes six of the most advanced atmospheric residue desulphurization units in the world, as well as an efficient semi-regenerative unit with a recovery rate of 99.9%.