Kuwait struggled to get its full refining capacity back online after a power cut halted operations at all three of the refining facilities operated by Kuwait National Petroleum Company.
Kuwait’s Mina Ahmadi, Mina Abdullah and Shuaiba refineries, with a combined total production capacity of 930,000 barrels per day, stopped operations on Wednesday, January 22, following a power cut. “The three refineries have stopped operations, with the exception of the gas plants, after a power cut,” Khaled al-Asousi, spokesman for KNPC told AFP shortly after the power cut occured.
“We have already started the damage assessment process and if everything is fine, production at the three refineries is expected to start after 24 hours, (but) could take 48 hours,” he added. By Friday, January 24, KNPC workers had managed to get the 460,000 bpd Mina Ahmadi refinery back to full production, according to various sources. But by Sunday, it was reported that the 270,000 bpd Mina Abdullah refinery was still only running at about 60% of capacity and the 48-year old Shuaiba refinery was operating at 70% of total capacity.
Asousi also said that both crude production and exports of crude oil and refined products in the OPEC member were not affected, because of the country’s reserve. Kuwait’s energy infrastructure is regarded as one of the least reliable within the GCC, and is rumoured to have been the cause of the shutdowns last month.
“The infrastructure lags behind by a big margin, […] and it is very likely the cause of the power cuts,” said Raghu Mandagolathur, senior VP of research at Markaz, a Kuwaiti asset management and investment banking firm. The EIA reported that in 2011, Kuwait had an average output of 6.3GW, but peak demand in 2010 was 10.5GW, a value that has increased on an annual basis. Slow developments in Kuwait’s infrastructure have been blamed on confict between the cabinet and parliament, leading to the rejection of a fiscal bill to approve the 2012-2013 budget for the Kuwait Development plan. The $105 billion Kuwait Development plan would include the $3 billion Al Zour Independent water and power plant project.
